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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1972)
Photos by James Link It came down to ‘gmts9 Some called it the greatest race they’d ever seen. Others hinted it was just the beginning of a bitter rivalry. ’’I wanted it to come down to who had the most guts,” said Steve Prefontaine after his stretch run with Oregon State's Ifailu in the 1,500 meters Saturday. Pre won in 3:39.8, his best time. Early in the race < left) he trailed teammate Kick Kitchie. Both runners trotted around track at finish. Sweep WSU in twin bill Ducks battle into tie By STll ART WATSON Of lht> Fmerald Washington State’s Cougars came to town Friday needing two victories to maintain their slim one game margin over the Ducks in the hotly contested battle for first place in the Pac-8 Northern Division At the conclusion of Friday’s encounter, the Cougars needed one victory They didn't gf*t it. The scrappy Ducks, undaunted by the 19-fi shellacking administered by WSII Friday af ternoon, fought back with tenacious defense and outstanding pitching to set the Cougars back on both ends of Saturday's doubleheader at Howe Field Behind the three hit pitching of starter Bob Claydon and reliever Steve Townsend, the Ducks outlasted WSU to win the marathon first game 3-2 when Greg Brosterhous lined a shot down the third base line to score Guy Krause from first Brosterhous’s double came in the 13th inning of a regularly scheduled seven inning game, three hours and 43 minutes after the first pitch. Relief came quicker in the tense second game. Oregon winning 3 1 Ducks jumped to a 2 0 lead in the first game. That didn't last long Claydon walked Cougar Scott Woodward and came face to face with hulking first baseman Frank Jackson Jackson promptly jumped on a juicy Cluydon serve and sailed the pitch over the hedges in right field, much to the dismay of Guy Krause and 2,000 Duck fans who could only watch When the next tlatter, Dave Pyles, was awarded a base on balls by umpire Harry Sehrieber, Duck coach Mel Krause verbally vented some of his frustrations and was quickly given the heave-ho by Sehrieber Barry Sbragia w ent the entire 13 innings for WSU, working Ins way out of bases loaded situations in the ninth, tenth, and 11th innings He gave up 11 hits and stranded 10 Ducks along the way. "You have to give him a lot of credit," said Duck mentor Krause "He did a fine job I'm just glad we won" Krause was even happier after the second game. Fireballing Mike Slump went the full nine innings to record his fifth victory against no defeats But it wasn't easy by any means On four straight Singh's by Neal. Brosterhous. McNally and Dean Roberts. Oregon tallied two runs to take the lead in their half of!he seventh Guy Krause iced the cake with a solo homer to right in the eighth WSU starter Larry Angell gave up all three runs Not a team to give in easily, the Cougars forced the game down to the final out. With men on first and second and two outs, Shoup served seven straight fouls to Steve Merkley before getting him to line out to Krause in right. “I’m very pleased It’s a credit to the character of the ball club to come back after a bad defeat and win two close ones,” said Krause after his Ducks had finally caught and tied the Cougars for the Northern Division lead Both teams have 11-4 records “Our pitching has been improving lately With good pitching like we had today, we can compete with anybody,” Krause said “It really helps when different guys start picking up for us. Guy (Krause) had a couple good throws and Roberts (Dave) made some great plays in spite of the sore elbow." Krause was referring to the three runners his son in right field threw out at the plate. In regard to Dave Roberts who was hit by a Sbragia pitch in the first game, bruising his left elbow, Krause said. "We had to keep him in. The elbow was bruised but no bones were broken that we could see. He couldn't sw ing the bat real well, but he's too valuable in the field to take out” Duck catcher Artie Salveson was also injured a la Pete Rose and Ray Fosse. WSU’s Merkley collided with Salveson in a play at the plate "Artie took a bad bump He didn’t really know where he was for awhile," Krause said Neal took over behind home and was replaced at first by McNally What does Krause think of next week's meetings with DSP” "They’ll be up for the game. We can’t slough off for them or they’ll beat us. At this stage of the game, we can’t afford that," he said The Ducks have three games left with the Reavers while WSF has three remaining with Washington. If both Oregon and WSU sweep their upcoming series, as is expected, what will be dixie atxiut the tie for first place” "There's nothing in writing about a playoff." said Krause, "but we ll probably have one No one really knows right now " Is Krause looking tow ard a meeting with Southern Division Champ CSC” No. he says "We’ve got to win this one first That's enough to think about for awhile " Pre staves off OsU’s Hailu By BOB BAUM Of the Emerald Name the biggest sports mismatch in the Pacific-8 Conference this year. No, it wasn’t Oregon vs. UCLA in basketball or Steve Prefontaine against anybody at three miles, but it happened Saturday afternoon when Oregon’s track team amassed all its forces, aimed them at Bernie Wagner’s fledging spikers from Oregon State, and trotted through a 117-37 dual meet win, the most thorough trouncing the Ducks have ever given the Beavers. Wagner said the Ducks came to compete, he might have added that the Beavers didn’t. Oregon won every event but one (5,000 meters) and swept the 100 meters, 200 meters, 440 yards, 800 meters, and the discus. Luckily, for the crowd anyway, Wagner decided what the hell and entered OSU’s middle-distance sensation Hailu Ebba in the 1,500 meters against Prefontaine. The result was one of the best races ever produced at Hayward Field. Pre said he had keyed himself on running against Hailu all week, even though Wagner had insisted the Ethiopian would run the 800 meters. “I planned on it coming down to who had the most guts, not who hadthe most speed,” Pre said, “That’s the kind of race I like.” Pre followed his plan to the letter, setting a fast pace, running the first half mile in 1:57. Hailu im de his move with about 300 yards left, pulling outside. Down the backstretch the two battled shoulder-to-shoulder with the veteran from Coos Bay keeping Hailu farther outside than the young Ethiopian wanted to be. Hailu’s kick wasn’t enough as Pre staggered the last 50 yards to pick up the victory in 3:39.8, good enough to break Morgan Groth’s eight-year-old field record. “When he started sprinting at 300 yards, I knew if he wasn’t going to go by me there he wasn’t going to go by,” Pre added. Hailu was upset with Pre’s tactics in the race, and aimed for a rematch between the two in the Pac-8 meet in Palo Alto in two weeks. “You are racing, you’re not fighting. That’s just one of the tricks he (Pre) uses. Down the back stretch I had to run in the third lane where as I could have ran in the second,” Hailu said. Next time the two meet, the OSU sophomore said, “I’ll have to use different strategy.” After the 1,500 meters, and Ivory Harris’ first win ever over Lowell Harris in the 110 meter high hurdles, the crowd started to dwindle, evidently an extra-inning baseball game at Howe Field has more interest than a slaughter on Urethane. Shot putter Pete Shmoek, upset about rumors that he had reached his peak, topped his previous best effort by almost a foot with a heave of 66-5‘4. “Rumor had it hat I had peaked, that my last throw was the end of my capabilities. I knew I hadn’t,” Shmoek said. Bouncy Moore leaped 26-5a4 with an assist from the wind to lead a one-two finish for the Ducks in that event Moore had three jumps better than 26 feet. Steve Bence, deprived of a showdown with Hailu at 800 meters, led the complete Duck domination at that distance. Bence toured the track at 1:49.8 just aheadof Wes Smylie at 1 49.9 and Mike McClendon at 1:50.5. Russ Francis has had it with the pressures of big-time college athletics. “I’m just going out and try to have fun throwing the javelin again." the big freshman ace said after he threw his season’s best of 241 7 Saturday Marty Hill ou'duelled OSU’s Tom Woods in the high jump and Tinker Hatfield set a new Frosh record in the pole vault at 16-1 in keeping with the total Duck domination that prevailed Golfers win 2 meets; netters lose to OSU While Jack Adler's golf team was winning two tournaments, the Oregon tennis team ran into a brick wall over the weekend. The golf squad won the Eastern Washington Invitational tourney in Spokane on Friday, then took a two-day meet at Moscow, Ida which concluded Sunday. Buzz Summers and the Duck netters had their troubles Friday in Corvallis The Beavers, who had already beaten Oregon tw ice, romped to an easy 8-1 win Only Rick Wilson was able to get a victory that came in his singles match with OSl"s Roger McKee Duck ace Mark Weir was upset by Jim Kuenzili. Doug Roxburgh and Don Smith had two day totals of four-over par 146 to lead the Ducks to the team crown at Moscow Oregon had .Jo strokes to 756 for Washington State. 759 for the host Vandals, and 777 for Montana Friday Smith had a closing round 69 to lead a 17-shot victory in the Eastern Wash meet. Going into the last day of play, the Ducks had trailed Washington by iwostrokes They ended up with a two-day 713 stroke total to 730 for the Huskies