February 21, 2011 p20www.hpu.edu/kalamalamaonline Designer: Susanne Haala

SPORTS

MARK CARPENTERstudent writer

With a new coach and globally diverse group, the Sea Warrior golf team hopes to play on par with high ex-pectations this year.

Retirement is no life of leisure on the golf links for Coach Steve Phillips. The former HPU professor Phil-lips heads a well prepared Sea Warrior golf team this year.

Phillips, who taught at the

New golf coach takes care of business

Earlier this month I was pleased to be a part of the ring ceremony for our national champion softball team.

It was quite the event ; Pres iden t Chatt Wright and Pacific West Con-ference Commis-sioner Bob Hogue were on hand along with 14 members of the team and all five coaches.

The celebration was carried live on television and on the Internet for all of Hawai’i and the world to see.

A season-high for attendance was set for the basket-ball games that sur-rounded the cere-mony, staff, student-athletes, and fans turned out for the event.

Although the 2011 season is underway, the accolades and re-spect for last year’s champions continue to roll in. Next, HPU will be honored by the Legislature at the State Capitol on March 3.

News from “Coach V”

Darren Vorderbruegge

HPU Athletics Director

JAZZMIN WILLIAMSstudent writer

The mantra of the night: “no mercy!” The key to the game: defense.

The Sea Warrior ladies basketball team took that message to heart when they defeated their cross-town rivals Chaminade 71-29 at the Neal Blaisdell Center on Feb. 8.

Holding an opponent to just 29 points, with only 10 being scored the first half, is a school record.

“It was a great overall team effort,” said head Coach Jeff Harada. “Their point guard couldn’t take Juice [Taiyande Huskey] off the dribble.”

The win put HPU at 15-4 overall and 9-1 in their con-ference. It also placed the lady

Sea Warriors alone at the top of the PacWest standings.

HPU controlled the tempo of the game from the start with Chaminade scoring their first point of the night on a free throw with 12:39 left in the first half.

The Sea Warriors then allowed only three more com-pleted field goal attempts and a 3-pointer, finishing the half at 37-10.

“I think that [defensively] we’re on the right path,” said sophomore guard Melody Ladrido. “But we still need to work on transition defense and not playing defense in spurts.”

On the offensive end, bal-anced scoring was the theme of the night, with 12 players scoring, and three in dou-ble digits. Freshman guard Skye Savini led with 12

points.Ladrido also noted that

the lady Sea Warriors seemed to be breaking a few records this year.

“We had our 12 game winning streak, the best pre-season record yet, and Court-ney Buster holding the single game rebounding record,” said Ladrido. “It feels like we’re breaking records left and right.”

When asked of the high-light of the game, junior guard Taiyande Huskey gave props to her fellow point guard, freshman Brittany Hale.

“When she [Hale] crossed that girl so hard she made her fall on her face,” said Huskey. “That was definitely the best part of the night.”

Jamie Higa and Kayci Will headed the Silverswords with 6 points each.

Defense, defense, defense!

HPU Business College for 16 years, was more than willing to trade downtown classes for tournaments all over the country.

“I thought maybe this will be a way I can give something back to President Wright,” Phillips said. “Not just to the president, but the university as well.”

Team captain Matthew de-Moraes has seen a number of coaches during his three plus years on the squad, and he is

impressed with how Coach Phillips is handling his new position.

“It’s been interesting be-cause he is the first coach who has been solely involved with the team. He’s been great. He’s a strong coach,” deMoraes said.

“He’s definitely the most hard-working coach we’ve ever had.”

With players from the United States, Canada, Eng-land and Italy, the Sea War-

riors are like a mini United Nations.

“The diversity ends up enhancing the dynamic of the team. It offers all sorts of different perspectives on how to play golf, and we all have a good time with each other,” said deMoraes, a native of Surrey, England.

“It’s great that HPU is international.”

With new additions like freshmen Mac Keats and Ian Boat, the Sea War-riors seek to build on last year’s seventh-place finish at the PacWest Championships and make a dent in the competition.

“We have a very young team, but our a t t i tude i s great. We are growing and getting stronger,” P h i l l i p s said. “We

hope to make a real strong showing at the PacWest tour-nament in April.”

Second-year player Matt Tweddell has high aspira-tions. “We want to get past the PacWest and hopefully by ranking, get to the next step, which is nationals,” he said.

Hopefully the professor turned coach will have his squad taking care of busi-ness.

Steve Phillips, the new men’s golf head coach.

The HPU golf team competed in the John Burns Intercollegiate Tournament at Turtle Bay’s George Fazio Course on Feb. 19.

Photo by Eric Alcantara

HPU’s Jazzmin Williams averages 12 points a game. The Lady Sea Warriors basketball team defeated BYU.

Photo by HPU AthleticsPhoto by Janay Troutman