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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, October 25, 2001

Small colleges
BYUH water polo a success

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

When Aukai Ferguson agreed to coach Brigham Young-Hawai'i's first water polo squad, he knew there would be growing pains.

Ferguson was hired in April, long after the recruiting season had already started. That meant working his expansive network of connections to the hilt. The school didn't have a regulation-sized pool. That meant the team would have to practice in the existing too-narrow, too-shallow pool on campus and that "home" matches would involve a long drive from La'ie to wherever a useable pool could be found.

This he knew.

He didn't know that his only goalie would go down with a season-ending double-groin injury after the first practice. He didn't know that his team would show up so out of shape that they would lose an exhibition match against a high school team.

And yet, with one match to play in the program's inaugural season, Ferguson couldn't be happier.

"Given all of that, I think we've done a good job," he said. "The players are really solid. They work hard. With their talent and a lot of miles of swimming, we've had a lot of success."

Indeed. The Seasiders are 11-11 heading into their final match against Chaminade (Nov. 2, 8 p.m. at Punahou). Four losses came by a single point, two in overtime.

The Seasiders showed grit, going 6-4 on a brutal six-day road trip earlier this month. They've also shown promise, knocking off two Top 20 teams (Bucknell and Laverne) with 11 freshmen on their 16-man roster.

BYUH tapped Ferguson when water polo replaced soccer as one of BYUH's NCAA Division II men's programs. Ferguson has a long water polo resume. He played for Loyola Marymount and Chaminade. After coaching Chaminade from 1992-94, he founded the Kahuku High School water polo program and helped start the public high school water polo league on O'ahu. In addition, he also has notable national experience, including his post as U.S. development coach for the Pacific Northwest.

"I've been involved in water polo for a long time and I had a lot of contacts," Ferguson said. "Basically, I followed every lead I could to get us started."

BYUH's position as the only Mormon university with a water polo program helped.

"Even in April, there were a lot of players who were unsure where they wanted to go," he said. "There were Church of Latter-Day Saints players who wanted to play for a church school, and we are the only school that offers water polo."

But it was an unsolicited e-mail query that delivered Ferguson his best player.

Yugoslavian Vanja Kalabic had contacted several schools via the Internet. Ferguson was intrigued, and after a few exchanges was convinced that Kalabic could help the team.

Ferguson's wife, former national team member Heidi McElhaney, spotted Kalabic's water polo physique when the couple went to the airport to pick up the new recruit.

"We went to the pool the next day and the first shot he took was one of the strongest I'd seen in a long, long time — right to the upper corner," Ferguson said. "Right then I thought, 'O.K., it's on.' "

Actually, it wasn't. Not yet. The team showed up for practice "completely out of shape," Ferguson said. After losing that exhibition to Corona del Mar — one of the top high school teams in the country, but still a high school team — Ferguson put his players on a punishing regimen that included as much as three miles of swimming a day."

"I think I made a point," he said. "Don't come here out of shape."

Things have gone swimmingly ever since.

In addition to Kalabic, the Seasiders also get consistent scoring from Derek Anderson, Jordan Brink and Steven Pace, and good play in goal from Ricky Signs, a 6-foot-3 converted field player.

Volleyball

• HPU drops: Hawai'i Pacific fell one spot to No. 10 in the latest AVCA Division II Coaches Top 25.

HPU (15-2, 9-2 PacWest) dropped despite being idle last week.

The Lady Sea Warriors need to win three of their last four conference matches to clinch the PacWest title and an automatic berth to the NCAA II Pacific Regionals to be held Nov. 16-17.