Master’s Horvatek Finds Refuge : College soccer: Forward enjoys the freedom to develop his talents but cannot escape anxieties about his family in strife-ridden Croatia.

Momir Horvatek sits peacefully in the shade of an oak tree in the serene surroundings of the Santa Clarita Valley, telling the story of a war-torn world.

Horvatek, a forward on The Master’s College soccer team, is a native of Croatia, the former Yugoslav republic where fighting flared Saturday despite yet another cease-fire agreement in a bloody civil war that has left 1,000 dead.

Meanwhile, Horvatek plays soccer for a small private college tucked in a quiet valley in Southern California, hoping that family and friends stay safe in a world of air-raid sirens and streets littered with debris from shelling.

“(In Yugoslavia), you live under pressure,” Horvatek said. “Pressure from society . . . and fear of the government. When I came here, all these pressures were gone and it was a relief.

“I became alive here.”

Horvatek was talking about how he has developed as an individual, his eyes now open to freedoms incomprehensible to his neighbors back home in Krapina, a little town 20 miles north of the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

But Horvatek also has developed as a soccer player. Roll a ball toward Horvatek’s feet and, suddenly, he’s explosive. “Horvatek,” Mustang Coach Jim Rickard said, “has speed.”

Horvatek scores goals on smart, swift runs that seemingly leave defenders lagging at the half line.

The junior sat on the bench for his first two years, playing behind four-time All-American Chris Palm, who holds virtually every Mustang scoring record.

Horvatek got his chance after Palm completed his eligibility last year.

“I was a little bit impatient,” Horvatek said of his role as understudy. “I wanted to play so bad.”

Croatia’s fight for independence threatened his plans to return to the United States to continue his education. Horvatek had traveled to Yugoslavia in the summer to visit his family and work with his father, a minister.

Horvatek tore himself away from his homeland and returned to Master’s on Aug. 21, eight days after preseason practice started. Shortly thereafter, Horvatek’s parents received a call from the Croatian government, requesting that their son fight in the Croatian army. But Horvatek already had turned his attention to battles on a U. S. soccer field.

“I was looking to (Horvatek) to pick up the slack and he has,” Rickard said. Horvatek leads Master’s (5-7, 4-3 in National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics District 3) with six goals.

Horvatek seems to have the ability to rally his teammates and pull out tough wins. Against Point Loma Nazarene, Master’s trailed, 1-0, with 15 minutes left when Horvatek scored the tying goal. He also scored the winning goal 10 minutes later on a crossing pass from Bruce Burnham.

“That gave me a good start for the season,” Horvatek said. “I’m getting goal-hungry. I’m finding my role in soccer up front, the way I should play and the way to win.”

Rickard is looking forward to the return of another starting forward, Ezekiel Bongarra, one of two Mustang players from Buenos Aires. Bongarra sustained a pulled hamstring early in the season and could not play, so Derek Clark has been filling in up front alongside Horvatek.

Rickard thinks Horvatek’s speed and Bongarra’s finesse will overcome opponents.

When his mind wanders back to Croatia, Horvatek thinks of the opponent as the Yugoslav federal army, as well as renegade Serbs living in Croatia. The country’s recent troubles began June 25 when Croatia and neighboring Slovenia declared that they were pulling out of the federation.

Most of the fighting has been going on in Croatia, in areas ranging from 20 to 120 miles from Horvatek’s home. A sister, Tanja, described in a letter how planes fly overhead all day and the city is blacked out every night.

“My dad has a church in Daruvar, and he can’t go there because everything is blocked off,” Horvatek said, referring to a small city near his hometown. “He usually takes the bus to go to the town. It got bombed the morning he was supposed to go there.”

Last week, the army attacked Croatia’s presidential palace in Zagreb. None of the Croatian leaders at government headquarters were hurt, although several Zagreb residents were injured by falling debris. The attack was the closest the fighting has come to Horvatek’s home.

When Horvatek was in Krapina this summer, he knew he could be called to go to war. “I thought, ‘If they call me, I will have to go,’ ” Horvatek said. “I was willing to fight. It sounds exciting but it’s not. It’s war. It’s reality. People get killed.”

Horvatek was in Croatia to help his father Misko spread the Baptist faith in the Balkans, an area in which various ethnic groups and religions traditionally have clashed. Horvatek’s calling has been to play the guitar at what he refers to as “beach ministries,” in which groups of youths go to the beach and sing and hand out literature about their religion.

This was the first summer Horvatek and his friends were able to hold beach ministries in Croatia, because that type of religious expression was prohibited in communist Yugoslavia. “They used to say that religion is only a private belief,” Horvatek said. “You can do it only in closed walls or in the church.”

Horvatek’s father found Master’s while he was looking for a place to study theology in the United States. Misko Horvatek graduated from Master’s in 1990 with a master’s degree in divinity, but before doing so he wrote to his son about a peaceful place where he could study and play soccer.

Momir Horvatek split time growing up between Vienna and Croatia, playing soccer for various club teams. He came to Master’s in 1988, after serving his obligatory duty in the Yugoslav army.

The problems in Horvatek’s homeland make the Santa Clarita Valley seem like paradise--”If you come from worse to better place, why would you want to go back to worse, you know?”--but his sense of duty gnaws at him to return.

Horvatek, a communications/Bible major at Master’s, eventually will return to his country to continue his work with youth groups. “I have known that I have to go back,” Horvatek said. “This is like a preparation stage for me. I have come to this college to prepare for the ministry back home.”

Until he returns home, Horvatek will savor his comparatively peaceful moments on the soccer battlefield for Master’s.