Emerald
Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Sports Editor: Tim Pyle
Best Bet
NBA Basketball
Minnesota vs. Sacramento
7:30 p.m.JNT
Ducks aim to run and gun
■ i ne womens basketball team gets the ball rolling with a
Sunday exhibition game against Lokomotiva Kosice
By Mirjam Swanson
Oregon Daily Emerald
After 18 practices and a few public
scrimmage exhibitions, the Oregon
women’s basketball team is set to mix
it up with a group of traveling Slovaks.
Lokomotiva Kosice takes on the
Ducks, co-defending Pacific-10 Con
ference champs, for an exhibition
game Sunday at 2 p.m. at McArthur
Court.
“We’re kind of sick of playing
each other,” Oregon point guard
Shaquala Williams said. “It’s gonna
give us an opportunity to play
against some different people. In
practice when we run our offense,
half the time we cheat, so I think
playing against somebody else is go
ing to help us get that rust off and re
ally see where we’re at.”
Last season’s 99-65 exhibition
blowout of Alvik of Sweden proved
to be a fitting prelude to the season for
the Ducks and for Williams, who had
I
nine points and six assists in her first
McArthur Court appearance.
Sunday’s game might give Oregon’s
newcomers a similar opportunity.
“They’re gonna get their opportu
nity to play,” Williams said. “Hope
fully, they’ll use that to kind of
springboard themselves in and to in
troduce themselves to the fans.”
In addition to the five new faces
on the floor, the Ducks’ offense will
also have a slightly different look.
Oregon has designed a faster-paced,
more guard-oriented attack.
“We’re doing a few new things,”
assistant coach Fred Litzenberger
said. “So it’s taken us awhile to pick
that up. Everybody’s working real
hard, and it seems like we’re all on
the same page.”
And that page, according to
Williams, reads like this: Move,
move, move.
“I run the plays,” she said. “So as
far as I’m concerned, we’re gonna
run what I want to run. Our offense
is going to be more wide open —
there won’t be as much standing on
the wing and passing it in to the post.
There’s going
to a lot more
movement.”
Litzenberger
and the entire
coaching staff
will be watch
ing closely to
gauge the
Ducks’ perfor
mance in the
live-game situ
ation.
“This is
where you find out where players are
in terms of playing the game,” Litzen
berger said. “You find out who can
make adjustments and who can’t.
That’s one of the good things about
having an exhibition game early.”
Eugene is the second stop on
Lokomotiva Kosice’s tour of the Pac
10. It plays at Washington on Satur
day and has rendezvous with Stan
ford and California later next week.
On tap
What: Women’s
basketball exhibi
tion
Who: Oregon vs.
Lokomotiva Kosice
Where: McArthur
Court
When: Sunday, 2
p.m.
mm~S
Jeffrey Stockton Emerald
Shaquala Williams and her teammates are hoping to get it right Sunday.
Jeffrey Stockton Emerald
Tne Ducks and Nicole Allen hope they’re able to knock down Oregon State tonight at McArthur Court. '
UO wants Civil War win,
hopes to end losing streak
■ The Beavers come to McArthur
Court with two players gone and
bring a six-match losing streak
By Scott Pesznecker
Oregon Daily Emerald
A civil war win is always sweet — but
for the Oregon volleyball team, it would
taste even better.
The Ducks (6-16 overall, 0-9 Pacific-10
Conference) have been marred by errors,
inconsistency and injuries to key play
ers. The result is a seemingly endless 16
match losing streak. Most of those
matches were three-game sweeps, in
cluding Oregon’s road loss to Oregon
State on Oct. 8.
But things have changed since then.
The Beavers (8-13, 2-11) come to
McArthur Court at 7 p.m. without start
ing setter Brandi Bonnarens, who is out
indefinitely with a knee injury. More im
portantly, an unhappy Sarah Bjeldanes
quit the team last week, eliminating the
key element of Oregon State’s offense.
And like Oregon, the Beavers are
struggling. They are on a six-match los
ing streak and five of those were in three
games.
“They probably feel a lot like we felt
when we didn’t have a lot of our play
ers,” junior Amy Banducci said. “It’s a
pretty helpless feeling when you’re do
ing something new, something out of
swing. We’re going to try to jump on it
and take advantage of their weaknesses.”
The Ducks are not without setbacks of
their own. Outside hitters Monique Tob
bagi and Heather Gilmore are in the
midst of battling injuries.
Tobbagi sat out of the Ducks’ loss to
Portland on Oct. 5 with a stress fracture
in her fibula and did not re-enter the
lineup until the rematch with Washing
ton State on Oct. 22.
The sophomore has been on the court
since then but is now experiencing
stress-fracture symptoms in her other
leg. Tobbagi was prohibited from jump
ing in practice this week and her status
for tonight is questionable.
“It’s going to come down to her
health,” Oregon head coach Cathy Nel
son said. “It’s a good break because we
only play one match this weekend, but
the biggest factor is her health.”
Gilmore, mean
while, is nursing
pain in her shoul
der that has limited
her hitting strength.
She is expected to
play.
Nelson said that
the Ducks’ lack of
confidence, not in
juries, must be over
come if they are to
capitalize on the
Beavers’ situation.
“Confidence is
going to be our biggest issue for the rest
of the year,” Nelson said.
“We’ve got to be having fun in prac
tice and enjoying the game of volleyball.
It’s hard for some — we’re not getting the
rewards of winning — so it’s hard to stay
motivated.”
In the first Civil War match in Corval
lis on Oct. 8, Bjeldanes led Oregon State
to a dominating three-game win. The
Ducks, without Tobbagi, showed some
spark in game three but couldn’t find a
way to score down the stretch.
Since the first matchup with the
Beavers, the Ducks have shown signs of
improvements in several occasions but
have failed to win a single game. The last
time Oregon won a game was in its four
game loss to Portland.
“We talked about goals today, a lot of
which was going all out, 100 percent,
and holding nothing back — no regrets,”
Banducci said. “Obviously we have
nothing else to lose so just give it all we
have.
“Here at Mac Court, we’re dying for a
win right now. We’re going to go out
there and take advantage of what we
have and go and win.”
On tap
What: Women’s
volleyball
Who: Oregon (fi
le, 0-9) vs. Ore
gon State (8-13,2
11)
Where: McArthur
Court
When: Tonight, 7
p.m.