The old college try

In the last Sports Extra of the academic year, this column likes to catch up with the college freshman our local sports staff voted as the prior year's top senior male and female athletes.

Let's renew acquaintances with former Montini three-sport star Pete Cappetta and his counterpart, Wheaton Warrenville South basketball grad Keilani Moeaki.

A lesson in utility

On April 26, on a 1-1 count in the sixth inning against Penn State, Pete Cappetta turned on an inside fastball.

Instantly he could tell he'd hit his first home run for the University of Illinois, a 3-run job.

"I knew it right away," he said.

When he pitched and played shortstop at Montini, dingers were relatively routine for the 6-foot-2, 170-pound Lisle resident. He cracked 10 of them to bolster a .404 average.

Playing behind a pair of second-team all-Big Ten middle infielders didn't afford Cappetta the playing time he'd had in high school.

Seeing action in 24 of the Illini's 56 ballgames, the 19-year-old hit .267 with a pair of doubles, 5 RBI and no errors in 13 chances at short and second base. Compiling only 15 at-bats, some games he'd get in as a pinch runner or defensive replacement.

"I learned a lot, but it didn't show on the field too much. Probably just being a freshman," Cappetta said.

"It definitely was a lot of fun. Coming in, you think you've got to try to fit in with the team, but they made it so easy for us."

Adjusting to the college atmosphere is a challenge to most freshmen, not to mention the student-athlete.

Cappetta, who shared a space in Champaign's "Six Pack" dormitory complex with two Lyons Twp. graduates, fit in fine -- as long as he could locate his wardrobe.

"You stepped anywhere," he said of his dorm room, "you probably stepped on somebody's clothes. We tried to decorate it, but there's no way to get anything going on there."

Befitting an athlete who earned 11 varsity letters in high school -- a three-year starter in football and four years each in baseball and basketball -- Cappetta sought out other athletic opportunities.

He played pickup basketball games, but a bigger catch was being drafted by former Montini teammates Mike Mucha and Steve Erlenbaugh to play quarterback on their flag football team. Occasionally running the option like at Montini, they were undefeated league champs.

Enrolling in Illinois' School of Business, Cappetta plans on declaring his major in accounting as a junior.

Cappetta, who will play ball for the DuPage Dragons this summer, acknowledged accounting is a tough degree, but "it opens a lot of doors."

He's not into keeping them shut.

"Keep an open mind," is Pete's advice. "Don't be too quick to not try anything. You can't shut things down. You've got to make friends, you can't go through all of college hanging out with your high school friends.

"You've got to know school comes first, but you've got to have fun and take it easy sometimes."

The long season

Reached last week on the Provo, Utah, campus of Brigham Young University, Keilani Moeaki still had two more weeks before finals.

She hadn't set foot in Warrenville since last August!

Underwhelming results made her freshman basketball season feel just as long -- not just because she started workouts with the Cougars in late June 2007 and continued practicing with the team well into March, even after the Cougars lost their last game.

"Altogether I think we could describe our season as, we struggled," said the former four-year MVP of the Wheaton Warrenville South girls basketball team, the Tigers' No. 3 all-time scorer and No. 2 rebounder.

"But it was a learning experience -- we all learned we didn't want to go through what we went through last season."

It wasn't as horrendous as the 6-foot-2 forward makes it out to be. BYU, whose freshmen outnumbered its seniors, went 13-16 and 7-9 in the Mountain West Conference.

After a 2006-07 season that ended in the NCAA Tournament after winning back-to-back conference titles, that wasn't up to snuff.

Rebuilding mode allowed Moeaki to start 9 games and play in all 29 at the power forward slot. Her 16.4 minutes per game ranked fifth on the team, and she averaged 3.6 points and 2.9 rebounds.

She scored a season-high 19 points off the bench against Hartford in front of her family.

"Everything's just more intense, and the speed of the game is definitely more uptempo," said Moeaki, who got her second wind after the initial confrontation with Utah's elevation.

"Also, you have to remember that you're on a team with girls who were the best in their high school -- you're not the best anymore. You can't just power through people."

Off the court she powered through her mandated freshman-year dorm to an off-campus locale as fast as possible. Sharing an apartment with teammates Mindy Nielson and Megan Marks, Moeaki learned the finer points of independent living.

"I whip up a good bowl of cereal now and then. Macaroni and cheese is my specialty," she said. "And you don't wash whites with your colors."

Along with a basketball trip to Connecticut, she enjoyed boating on Lake Powell and attending dance parties with friends. In school she favored exercise science classes.

Her off-court highlight, though, was a blossoming romance with BYU running Harvey Unga, a 2007 freshman All-American who set all sorts of records.

Now, Keilani has two loves.

"I just learned how much I really do love the game of basketball and want to be the best," she said. "I thought I was one of the best, but coming into college ball, not even."