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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 1999)
Men Continued from Page11A having another champion,” Fein said. “Coach has a focus of trying to get the program back to the top of the Pac-10.1 think we’ve done a lot with the team we have now, ( H It is important to be pa tient when you’re develop ing a distance runner and a cross country team. I think our progress through the first half of the season has been excellent. Martin Smith head coach J J more than some expected, but we’re not at the top, yet.” Coach Smith knows that a championship may be out of reach, but he is looking forward to the possibilities that the con ference championship presents. “It will be another exciting step for our young team [to see] how it stacks up at this level of competition,” Smith said. “Our focus will be for our team to maximize its perfor mance. We’ve always been of the philosophy to just prepare as intelligently as we can and see how we react on meet day.” The Ducks hope to react espe cially well against Arizona State. Oregon beat the Sun Devils at the Roy Griak Invitational on Sept. 25, but Arizona State got its revenge when it “walloped” — according to senior Andrew Bliss — Oregon at the Pre NCAAs. “It’ll be tough to knock off a team like Stanford because it’s on another level,” Bliss said. “We can beat ASU though, and if we do that, we’ll try to go after Arizona, too.” Co-captains Fein and Bliss will be leading a Duck lineup that features juniors Sam Hill, Michael Kasahun and Lincoln Nehring; and freshmen Tom Becker, Jason Hartmann and Kris Martin. As the team hits the home stretch — consisting of the Pac 10s, the Nov. 13 Western Re gionals, and probably the NCAA Championships on Nov. 22 — coach Smith is pleased with the way his team has come along. “We are a very young team,” Smith said. “It is important to be patient when you’re developing a distance runner and a cross country team. I think our progress through the first half of the season has been excellent.” No. 23 Ducks take on Pac-10 ■ The women’s cross country team prepares for the Pac-10 Championships By Jeff Smith Oregon Daily Emerald The team may be nationally ranked for the first time this sea son, but now it faces the challenge of staying there. The No. 23 Oregon women’s cross country team impressed the pollsters with its 16th place tie at the Pre-NCAAs. The Ducks hope to continue making noise tomor row at 12 p.m. at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships. It will not be an easy assign ment. Oregon faces a field that in cludes five teams currently ranked in the top-25, and with three of those teams in the top 11. Those teams include No. 1 Stan ford, No. 9 Washington, No. 11 Arizona State and No. 14 UCLA. The obvious favorite is the de fending champion Cardinal, who will be looking to capture its sixth title in seven years. Head coach Tom Heinonen knows that his Ducks will have trouble if they try and go after Stan ford, so instead he has set more re alistic goals for his squad. “We want to stay ahead of Ari zona and take aim at UCLA,” Heinonen said. “I think we can be a lot better than we were at the Pre NCAAs and a fourth-place finish would be great." The Ducks ran into some misfor tune in Indiana at the Pre-NCAAs, but Heinonen doesn’t expect such bad luck to continue. “We had three runners get knocked down in the race at the Pre-NCAAs,” Heinonen said. 'Tara [Struyk] will run a lot bet ter and won’t fall twice. Eri [Mac donald] will run better on a flat course and Kylee Wells should im prove, too.” The course at El Dorado Region al Park in Long Beach, Calif., will be a far cry from the hilly course the Ducks ran at the University of Indiana. The 5,000-meter course is predominantly flat and grassy and has several road crossings. Oregon’s lineup will not feature its top returner. Junior Katie Crabb will be .held out because of an Achilles aggravation. She has been suffering with the injury through out the season and is hoping to be ready for the Western Regionals on Nov. 13. “It’s a huge impact with Katie out of the race,” Heinonen said. “It changes our score substantially to not have Katie in the mix. We’ll have her train in the water, but it’s not the same as running. ” The Ducks that will be running include senior Lisa Jansen; ju niors Rhiannon Glenn, Ghrissy Ruiter and Wells; sophomore Pam Fields; and freshmen Erinn Gulbrandsen, Macdonald, Struyk and Amy Nickerson. Nickerson has nursed her way back to near full strength after suf fering a mild Achilles aggravation earlier in the fall. She led the Ducks at the Pre-NCAAs with her 32nd place finishing time of 18 minutes, 1 second. “Amy is doing a lot better,” Heinonen said. “She hasn’t done all the training that she’s wanted to do, but she’s done most of every thing that she can.” Oregon is still in search of one of the 13 at-large berths for the NCAA Championships and can’t afford a letdown in Long Beach. “This is the conference champi onships so it’s very important,” Heinonen said. “If you screw up in your own conference and finish behind a team that you should have beaten, then it could affect the at-large process. ” Reloaded Blazers shoot to take step further into NBA Finals oy Lanuon nan Associated Press PORTLAND — Usually the speculation about who will win the next NBA championship be gins right after the horn sounds on the Finals, when a reporter jams a microphone into the star player’s face and asks, “Can you do it again?” The San Antonio Spurs have re ceived all the consideration befit ting the defending champions, but the Portland Trail Blazers have stolen a considerable portion of the thunder. "We’re going to be a formidable team,” Portland guard Greg Antho ny said. “How formidable remains to be seen. We still have a lot of growing to do. To even speculate about how far we’re going to go, it really does us no good because we ve got a marathon to run. The Blazers are reviled by many teams around the league because of the perception that billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has purchased the best NBA team money can buy, like a new com puter loaded with cool graphics and gizmos. Version 99-00 ofthe Blazers fea tures a starting lineup with a com bined salary of $53 million: Scot tie Pippen, the small forward acquired from Houston for Kelvin Cato, Walt Williams and four guys the Rockets didn’t even want; power forward Brian Grant; center Arvydas Sabonis; point guard Da mon Stoudamire; and shooting guard Steve Smith. The Blazers’ reserves — guard Greg Anthony and Stacey Aug mon, forwards Rasheed Wallace, Detlef Schrempf and Bonzi Wells, and center Jermaine O’Neal — ac tually have outplayed the starters much of the time, helping the Blazers breeze through the presea son. Seven players averaged in dou ble figures, and even more impres sive, Portland out-rebounded its opponents by a wide margin, even without Grant, who is recovering from knee surgery and likely won’t play his first game until the opener Tuesday at Vancouver. “We realize we have yet to even scratch the surface of what we’re capable of doing as a team,” Pip pen said. “Especially when we don’t have a guy like Brian in the lineup.” Mike Dunleavy, the NBA coach of the year last season, may have the NBA’s most versatile lineup. Pippen can play either forward or guard position, and new hires Smith and Schrempf can play both shooting guard and small for ward. One of Dunleavy’s few prob lems may be at center. Sabonis is 35 and slower than ever, and he simply can’t guard the NBA’s more aggressive big men like Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Still, Sabo nis remains one of basketball’s best-passing centers, and if he be gins to wear down, the position will be filled by either Wallace or O’Neal, who has bulked up for his fourth pro season and just signed a four-year, $24 million contract. Entering last season, Portland had lost in the first round of the playoffs six straight years. Dun leavy had played in more NBA Fi nals (two) than anyone on his team. But that all changed when Grant, a powerful rebounder who had a star-making season, led the Blazers to the Western Conference finals. The Spurs won in four games, but the experience changed the Blazers. They have learned to ex pect more. “I think last season is a tremen dous building block for us,” Dun leavy said. “We know the work we put in last year was a great time to get through the regular season competing for the best record in the league, and to make it as far as we did in the playoffs, I think helped our guys a great deal. It gives them confidence, but also a measuring stick on what they need to do this year in order to take it another step further.” 007789 All Ways Travel 1200 High St. • 338-4IS E-mail: awt(a)luv2travel.com • Join our E-mail list, and get GREAT Sale Fares!!! • Eugene to: (QTUDEffP Portland to: London - $475.00* *San Francisco - $ 78.00* Tokyo - $615.00* London - $406.00* Auckland - $959.00* Lima, Peru - $560.00* ♦Subject to availability & change without notice, tax not included, restrictions may apply. Student Travel Experts • Serving the UO since 1990 Cheap stuff from the Dance Department’s \ Costume Room Yard Sale at Gerlinger Annex Fri, & Sat. October 29 & 30 11:00am - 5:00 pm 007686 UO Cultural Forum Presents David Spade at Mac Court Saturday, October 30th at 0:00 p.m. After the game, come to David Spade Reserved Seating Tickets: UO Students $10 (plus service charge) General Public $20 (plus service charge) Tickets on sale now at EMU Ticket Office and all Fastixx Outlets! For information please call the UO Cultural Forum at 346-4373