Friday
May 28,1999
Best Bet |
Major League Baseball
LA Dodgers vs. Atlantal
4:30 p.m., TBS
V
3
Over
the,
top
Nick Medley/Emerald
By Scott Pesznecker
Oregon Daily Emerald
Younger sister goes to high school.
Older sister plays softball, so
younger sister joins the team.
Sisters have fun playing softball.
Older sister graduates. Younger sister
quits.
Younger sister discovers pole vault —
and younger sister is good.
Very good.
So good, in fact, that it’s hard to believe
that Niki Reed vaulted 10 feet not long after
taking up the sport.
“In softball, everyone’s really serious,”
Reed said. “If you lose a game, they’re all
mad. Track is a lot more laid-back.”
Reed, born in Missoula, Mont., on April
1, 1980, moved to Newport when she was
in the 7th grade. At Newport High School,
she was a junior when she decided to pick
up a pole instead of a bat.
By the school year’s end, she had climbed
near the pinnacle of her prep pole-vaulting
career with a third-place finish at the Ore
gon state 3 A competition.
And by the time she graduated, she held a
state title — along with varsity letters in vol
leyball, softball and all-state second-team
honors in swimming.
“When I was a senior, there was some
better competition” at the state meet, Reed
said. “There were a couple other girls who
could have taken first, so it was more com
petitive, but I knew what I was doing. I
guess I just jumped the highest.”
Reed’s two top college choices were Ore
gon and Washington, but the latter didn’t
interest her because it was far away from
home and it lacked a true pole-vaulting
coach.
Oregon presented an opposite situation.
Reed’s family in Newport is close enough to
come and watch the freshman vault at all of
her home meets. Also, Oregon’s pole-vault
ing coach, Andrzej Kresinski, has worked
Nik i Reed
has lived up
to high
expectations
throughout
her
freshman
year at
Oregon
Turn to REED, Page12A
Freshman Niki Reed has became a potential NCAA scorer in her first year as a Duck.
Blazers execute Jazz with proficient play in fourth
By Landon Hall
The Associated Press
PORTLAND — The Portland Trail Blaz
ers didn’t let the Utah Jazz pull off another
miracle finish.
Isaiah Rider scored 24 points, Jim Jackson
had 17 and the pair combined to make 12
free throws in the final 1:05 Thursday night
as the Blazers defeated the Jazz 92-80 to win
their best-of-7 Western Conference semifi
nal series 4-2.
The Blazers advance to play San Antonio
in the Western Conference finals beginning
Saturday.
The Jazz, who won game five to stave off
elimination for the sixth time in two post
seasons, may have let their last shot with fu
ture Hall of Famers Karl Malone and John
Stockton slip away.
Malone had one of the worst postseason
games of his career, scoring a career playoff
low 8 points on 3-for-16 shooting.
“This is a very good basketball team,”
Utah coach Jerry Sloan said. “They’re
young, lively and they deserve to be where
they are. Our guys battled them, we just did
n’t have enough to win against them.”
The Jazz trailed by nine points with 6:40
left, but cut the lead to two on a layup by
Bryon Russell and a free throw by Jeff Hor
nacek that made it 80-78 with 1:21 left.
Jackson made two free throws to push the
lead to 82-78 with 1:05 left. Utah’s Bryon
Russell missed on a 3-point attempt, and
Brian Grant grabbed the rebound. Jackson
made two more from the line to make it 84
78 with 45.7 seconds left.
A 3-pointer by Stockton was short, and
Rider made eight free throws in the final 33
seconds to seal it.
Arvydas Sabonis had a solid game, scor
ing 14 points. Rasheed Wallace had 14
points, and Grant had seven points and 12
rebounds.
Hornacek scored 21 points to lead the
Jazz. Russell had 17. Stockton had 14 points
and 10 assists.
There were no altercations, even after
Malone elbowed Grant in game five, open
ing up a gash over his right eye. Rider had
talked of retaliation, but there was none.
“We proved that we can do it, man, this
year isn’t a fluke for the Blazers,” said Grant,
who embraced Malone after the game and
tried to make peace.
“We both respect each other,” Grant said.
“A lot of things we said to each other we
didn’t mean. He wished me luck and I
wished him luck.”
Portland took a 74-65 lead when Greg An
thony dribbled along the baseline and found
Walt Williams alone in the comer for a 3
pointer with 6:40 left. The basket came after
two turnovers by Malone — a ball dropped
out of bounds and an errant pass after he
came up with a jump ball.
A turnaround jumper by Grant made it
78-71 with 3:30 left. A one-handed jumper
by Russell and two free throws by Stockton
cut it to 78-75 with 2:35 left, but Rider kept
up the pressure by hanging in the air and
hitting a bank shot for an 80-75 lead with
2:17 to play.
“They said (the pressure) was on us, but
it wasn’t on us,” Rider said.
The Blazers led 64-61 to start the fourth
quarter, and quickly stretched it to an eight
point lead, matching their biggest of the
Turn to BLAZERS, Page 12A