Oregon daily emerald., April 30, 1998, Page 7, Image 7

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NBA Playoffs
LA. Lakers at Portland,
TNT(27) 7:30p.m.
Sports
Emerald
Ducks finish seventh with poor final round
1 he men,
who entered
Wednesday’s
final round
tied for fifth,
shot a 381
in the final
round of
the Pac- 10s
By Tim Pyle
Sports Reporter
Steve Nosier was not pleased Wednesday.
The Oregon men’s golf team provided its
head coach with little to be happy about by
saving the worst for last at the Pacific-10
Conference Championships in Orinda, Calif.
The Ducks shot a final-round 381 to end
the 72-hole tournament at Orinda Country
Club in seventh place. Oregon entered the fi
nal round tied for fifth with UCLA.
“Quite frankly, it didn’t seem like we did
anything very well,” Nosier said. "We
weren’t hitting the ball off the tee particular
ly well. We were getting it in the tall grass,
which you just can’t do on that golf course
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“Then if we hit an errant
second shot instead of just
missing the green by a lit
tle bit, we’d go back in the
tall grass again and then
we weren’t getting up and
down. Then when we got
uui un me green, i saw very tew putts go m. it
looked to me like we just were taking every
advantage we could to shoot as high of a
score as we could. ”
Ben Crane’s 74 was Oregon’s best individ
ual score for the day. Crane, who is ranked
No. 61 in the MasterCard Collegiate Golf
Rankings, also led the Ducks on the final in
dividual leaderboard by tying for 18th with a
six-over-par 294.
Arizona State completed its rise from fifth
place after Monday’s first two rounds by
winning its fourth straight Pac-10 title. The
Sun Devils were five strokes behind host
California heading into the final round but
shot a 356 to finish with a combined score
Turn to GOLF, Page 8
Leaders
■ OREGON:
18. Crane 294
■ INDIVIDUAL:
1.Casey 283
ASU
■ TEAM:
1. ASU 1,444
2. UCLA 1,455
3. Arizona 1,459
4. Calif., 1,461
5. Wash., 1,476
Civil War
—_
_
J
NICK MEDLEY/Emerald
Melinda Walton slides under the tag of Oregon State catcher Kim Herman in the Ducks' 7-1 Game-2 victory.
Oregon slides past OSU in Game 2
The Ducks bounced back
from a 7-4 loss in Game 1 to
beat the Beavers and move up
in the conference standings
By Joel Hood
Sports Reporter
If nothing else, the Oregon softball
team’s Wednesday afternoon double
header with Oregon State will be
known as the coming out party for
freshman pitcher Bethany Smith.
Smith (11-8) allowed just three hits
and no earned runs through five in
nings to lift Oregon to a critical Game-2
victory over the rival Beavers in front of
429 at Howe Field. The 7-1 win moved
the Ducks into a fourth-place tie with
California in the Pacific-10 Conference
standings and was just the second con
ference victory of Smith’s career.
It couldn’t have come at a better time
for Oregon head coach Rick Gamez,
who has said his team will need to de
velop a solid No. 2 starter if it is to qual
ify for postseason play for the first time
since 1994.
“This is the best she’s looked on the
mound in a real long time,” Gamez
said. “She did a great job for us.”
Smith also contributed at the plate as
she lined a Tarrah Beyster pitch off the
left-field wall in the bottom of the sec
ond inning to score the Ducks’ first run
in Game 2. Oregon (36-23 overall, 8-12
Pac-10) padded its lead in the bottom of
SOFTBALL
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fielder Melisa Jeppsen
singled up the middle
to score two runs.
“That’s the first hit
I’ve ever had in the
Pac-lOs,” Smith said.
“I’ve been workine
real hard in practice and I guess it has
paid off for me. I just got a perfect pitch
to hit.”
Pitching with a three-run lead in the
top of the sixth, Smith allowed back-to
back singles and was forced to walk
Beyster, who had hit two home runs off
Oregon pitching in Corvallis on April
11th. With the bases loaded and no
outs, Gamez made the decision to bring
in ace Jennie Cook from the bullpen to
keep Oregon State off the board.
Cook, who pitched a complete game
in the Ducks’ 7-4 Game-1 loss, got
catcher Kim Herman to ground the ball
Turn to UO, Page 12
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Bethany Smith held Oregon State score
less through five innings of Game 2.
Blazers grow
up as a team
during win
Finally, after eight preseason games,
82 regular-season games and two
playoff games, the Portland Trai 1
Blazers seemed to grow up during
their 99-94 Game 3 victory over the Los An
geles Lakers on Tuesday night.
i nrougnout the sea
son, the Blazers were la
beled a bunch of imma
ture whiners — a tag not
entirely undeserved —
but at least for a game they
shed that label.
Fear and desperation
have a funny way of doing
that. Portland didn’t ex
actly have much of a
choice,afterall. Down 0-2
in the best-of-five first
Alex
Pond
iuuuu inda riayun senes, me mazers nan
to either wake up and get the win or pack np
for a long summer vacation.
Obviously, they chose the former and
will now try to knot the series at two games
apiece tonight in the Rose Garden.
The Blazers could be likened to a college
kid in his first couple of terms away from
home. The kid takes advantage of new
found freedom, parties way too much, and
before he knows it, finds himself on acade
mic probation, so the parents threaten to
quit sending checks every month. All of the
sudden, the kid shows up on the dean’s list
the next term.
The kid knew all along he had it in him to
get good grades; he just had to reach deep
within himselfand find some motivation.
On Tuesday, the Blazers played with
pure desire and determination not seen
from a Blazers squad in quite some time.
For awhile there, I wasn’t so sure the
Blazers really cared if they got swept or not.
With their second-half play on Tuesday,
specifically late in the third and all of the
fourth quarters, they proved me wrong.
I’m not talking about just the X’s and O’s
of basketball here. It takes much more than
that to win in the playoffs.
I’m talking about poise, mental tough
ness and the ability to handle adversity.
Quite frankly, the Blazers have been terrible
in those categories all season.
Sometime during Game 3, the Blazers
matured.
Sure, there were several long, hard stares
at the officials because of several question
able calls by the officials. But that’s just my
point.
That was it. Just incredulous looks. There
were no temper tantrums resulting in tech
nicals — although Arvydas Sabonis was on
the edge when he slammed his mouthpiece
to the floor in frustration after fouling out
late in the game, but he did that on the side
lines, not on the court near a technical-hap
py official.
Turn to POND, Page 8