Keeping the battle on court

It was British author George Orwell who penned "Serious sport is war minus the shooting."
Western Bay Suns basketball recruit Sasha Tasevski knows a bit about sport and plenty about warfare - enough to steer well clear of any correlation.
The 30-year-old Macedonian arrived in Tauranga a month ago to play for the Foot Mechanics-sponsored Suns in the Conference Basketball League, fresh from two seasons in the national league with Harbour Heat.
Tasevski has spilled blood on the boards as a former Yugoslav national basketballer, although it was the bloodshed in his homeland during the Kosovo War almost a decade ago that forced him to seek refuge in New Zealand.
He arrived in New Zealand six years ago on a sport talent visa, lured to the Southern Hemisphere in search of a more peaceful life.
"I had offers to play basketball in the Czech Republic and Croatia but it was just too close to my home in Macedonia. New Zealand was as far away from home as I could possibly get."
Despite getting New Zealand residency 2 1/2 years ago, emotions still run raw when Tasevski talks about his homeland, a landlocked republic on the Balkan peninsula bordered by Serbia and Greece that has seen more than its share of civil conflict.
Macedonia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, although the breakaway province was again seriously destabilised by the Kosovo War in 1999 when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo took refuge.
Tasevski was conscripted into the army in 1996, serving one year of compulsory military training, but it was in 1999 and 2000 that he saw frontline action during the Kosovo uprising as part of the Yugoslav Special Forces' anti-terror squad.
"It was hard, I lost lots of friends and my father at that time, and my mother, two sisters, nieces and nephews remain in Skopje [Macedonia's capital].
"I went back for three months last year and the changes are huge."
Tasevski started playing basketball at school, making the Yugoslavian under-13 team in '89, where he played alongside Peja Stojakovic, who is now on court in the NBA with the New Orleans Hornets.
Fighting in the Kosovo War forced Tasevski to hang up his boots for two years, although once the conflict ended he won three Macedonian national titles with leading club teams Sokoli and Rabotnicki before emigrating to New Zealand.
Tasevski was a key member of the Harbour Heat reserves for five years, taking out CBL player of the year three times under the guidance of Alex Stojkovic, now head coach and general manager of the Western Bay Suns.
"Getting a player of Sasha's calibre to move to Tauranga is a major coup for our young team," Stojkovic said this week.
"He's not the youngest guy on the court any more but what I like about him - apart from the fact he can play wherever I need him - is that he understands the game and knows how to play basketball."
Tasevski, now studying fitness at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, never won a CBL title with Harbour Heat. He's confident that could change.
"I feel like I have fitted in very well here [and] want to be part of Alex's plans for this team for the next few years."
Western Bay Suns schedule for May: Sat May 3 v Waikato Titans, QEII, 3.30pm; Sun May 4: v AUT, QEII, 2.30pm; Sat May 10: v Harbour Heat (away); Sat May 17: v Taupo Volcanoes (away); Sun May 18, v Junior Tall Blacks, QEII, 2.30pm; Sat May 24: v Taitokerau, away; Sun May 25: v Taitokerau, away; Sat May 31: v Northside, QEII, 7.30pm.
Western Bay Suns: John Dishroon (capt), Mike King (import), Wesley Hunia, Eru Wills, Whare Bidois, John Miller, Ike Smith, Tane Bennett, Jonathon Korenhof, Nick Jeffery, Sasha Tasevski, Michael Nicholas, Charlie Piho (from June).