Updated: Wed Nov. 04 2009 16:54:03

CTV.ca News Staff

Investigators are trying to determine why three North Dakota university softball players ended up dead, the day after their bodies were found inside a jeep submerged in a rural farm pond.

The bodies of 21-year-old Ashley Neufeld of Brandon, Man.; 22-year-old Kyrstin Gemar of San Diego, Calif.; and 20-year-old Afton Williamson of Lake Elsinore, Calif., were found inside a Jeep Cherokee northwest of Dickinson, N.D. A small Lhasa Apso dog was also inside the vehicle.

All three women were students at Dickinson State University, located in a small town that is nearly 500 kilometres west of Fargo and 90 kilometres east of the Montana state line.

The missing women were last heard from on Sunday evening, when a friend received two calls asking for help. In the "very scratchy" calls, police said the women indicated that they were near a lake and water.

Dickinson police Lieut. Rod Banyai said police used cellphone "pings" -- signals sent between cellphones and communication towers -- to narrow the area where they needed to search.

Local and state police undertook ground and air searches for the missing women, until police found the location where the car was submerged on Tuesday afternoon.

The jeep, with the doors closed and the windows intact, was removed from the pond and the bodies recovered.

The vehicle has California licence plates and is registered under Gemar's name, police said.

Banyai said the pond was a couple of kilometers off a road on a farm northwest of Dickinson. In an e-mail to CTV.ca, he said the pond was more than three metres deep.

Police say they do not suspect foul play, though they are still investigating. Autopsies are planned for the near future.

Stark County Sheriff Clarence Tuhy said the women may not have seen the pond their jeep became submerged in, as the water was hidden by tall grass on a farm and because of how dark it was.

CTV's Jill Macyshon said that the site where the women were found is in a hilly, rural area about 20 kilometres outside of Dickinson.

"It's a large ranching area, there's a lot of cattle and horses and very large acreages, and it's not difficult to end up from a dirt road into somebody's field or into a yard," Macyshon reported from Dickinson, N.D. on Wednesday morning.

A community mourns

In Brandon, friends and former teammates drew a heart in the infield dirt of a local ball diamond in tribute to Neufeld.

Dozens of people showed up for the impromptu memorial after being informed via text and phone calls. Some left flowers on second base.

"I don't want to dwell on any negatives 'cause I don't know anything negative about Ashley," Jim Nay, who coached Neufeld for six years, told The Canadian Press.

"Just the positive things -- the image she created, the (way) the young people would go to the ballpark to see Ashley, the way the young people's faces would light up when Ashley was in the ballpark."

All three women were members of their university softball team at a small school where only 2,700 students attend.

According to the university website, classes are cancelled Wednesday "as a day or mourning and remembrance."

"Our hearts are filled with sadness. The death of our three students is a great tragedy," Richard McCallum, the university president, said in a statement posted on the website.

"Our prayers and sympathy go out to the parents, families and friends of Kyrstin, Ashley and Afton. A special thanks to everyone who has expressed kind thoughts and prayers and a special thanks to all the law enforcement officials who helped find our students."

Neufeld's mother, Bev, said she was trying to stay strong, after learning that her Canadian daughter had died in North Dakota.

"That's what she would want, and we have so much support here (on campus)," Neufeld said Tuesday. "We know how much Ashley loved this school. I would just like everybody to remember Ashley's smile and personality."

Nay, said he felt "nothing but total devastation" after learning that she had died.

He said Neufeld was a "fantastic" player and a very outgoing person.

Neufeld, a psychology major, was a right-handed outfielder on her softball squad.

Gemar played third-base and was studying business.

Her father, Lenny Gemar, attended a prayer service at the university on Tuesday evening.

"It's the worst day of my life," he said. "A parent shouldn't be burying a child. Kyrstin had such a bright future ahead of her."

Williamson recently transferred to the school from a community college. A psychology major, she was a pitcher on the university team.

Softball teammate Jessica Huseby of Hamilton, Mont., said that the team will not forget their friends.

"I'm sure it will be difficult for quite a while. But we know that they'll be there with us. They would want us to play," Huseby said. "We just know they're going to be the 10th, 11th and 12th players on the field with us."

With files from The Associated Press, The Canadian Press and a report from CTV's Jill Macyshon