Islanders will host first-round playoff

Advertiser Staff and Wire Reports

The Hawaiian Islanders will host an arenafootball2 first-round playoff game on Aug. 1, after a tie was declared after the death of a Bakersfield Blitz player during a game last Saturday.

Julian Yearwood, 31, passed out while on the bench in the first quarter of a game against the Wichita Stealth and died later at a hospital Saturday night.

He had come off the field inside the air-conditioned Kansas Coliseum a few plays earlier, after blocking a field-goal attempt. The game wasn't completed and was declared a 7-7 tie yesterday by the league office.

The tie enabled the Islanders (10-5) to win the National West Division and clinch the No. 3 seed in the playoffs.

The six playoff teams from the National Conference have been determined.

The Quad City Steamwheelers (13-2) and Tulsa Talons (12-3) will have first-round byes in the playoffs.

The Islanders' playoff opponent will be either Wichita (8-6-1), the Arkansas Twisters (8-7) or Bakersfield (7-7-1).

Bakersfield will travel to Honolulu to play the Islanders in the teams' regular-season finale at 6 p.m. Sunday. A league-wide moment of silence will be held to honor Yearwood at all af2 games this weekend.

An autopsy Sunday did not indicate what killed Yearwood, a 6-foot-2, 260-pound fullback/ linebacker, the Sedgwick County coroner's office said yesterday.

Authorities will now await results of toxicology reports, which will be available within a few days to a few weeks, Sedgwick County communications coordinator Angie Duntz said yesterday.

Yearwood lived in Bakersfield, Calif., and had 22 1/2 tackles and six sacks as well as 20 carries for 72 yards and two touchdowns this season.