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.”
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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
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