Road-warrior Ducks a step closer to home ■ Oregon’s long road trip has provided the young team with early experience By Scott Pesznecker Oregon Daily Emerald CORVALLIS — With a single Pacific-10 Conference game un der their belts, a long road awaits the co-champion Ducks. That may be a hard thing for Oregon to stomach, considering it hasn’t played in the comforts of home since early December. It could be hard to imagine a road being any longer. Following a 90-58 rout of Colorado at McArthur Court on Dec. 4, which earned Oregon a ranking as the No. 9 team in the nation, the Ducks saw their ranking — and chances of an undefeated preseason — slip away in a one point, heartbreaker loss to South west Missouri State at the Women’s Sports Foundation Col lege Basketball Classic in Spring field, Mo. Two days later, a fatigued and injured Oregon team was. rolled over 74-61 by UC Santa Barbara. The loss marked the first time since December 1997 that the Ducks have dropped consecutive games. Before it’s Pac-10 debut in Cor vallis, Oregon lost its third road game 66-60 to unranked San Francisco. With the exception of a 79-69 win over Kansas State and beat ing Portland State 79-42 in Port land, the Ducks’ victories have even been shaky. Oregon edged DePaul 86-82 for the win but nearly lost the contest after blow ing a 24-point second-half lead. Was that the same Oregon team that walked onto Ralph Miller Court on Saturday? The same Oregon squad that held off a f i r e d - u p , physical Ore gon State at tack? The same Ducks who continu ally pumped up the vol ume in an al ready intense game? According to Oregon head coach Jody Runge, no. “We’ve had to learn to be pa tient in order to figure out what we’re dealing with, and how to correct the answer, keep playing hard and not get frustrated,” Runge said. “I think we’ve gotten used to it. Maybe earlier in the season, we got frustrated with that and it took us out of our game plan. “When we played [Southwest Missouri State] and Santa Bar MEHARRY bara, we'were tired and we didn’t get any breaks. We didn’t get any breaks tonight, but we handled it better, and that’s the value of what we’ve seen on the road.” Coaches and teammates attrib uted a portion of their successful road win to the fans who filled the upper decks of Gill Coliseum. “It’s tough to keep that intensi ty every day,” center Jenny Mowe said. “It gets to be tough, but then you get back in front of your fans and it’s like ‘Yeah,’ this is what we’re doing it for.” Unfortunately for Oregon, two more road matches separate the Ducks from playing at home. Un like Corvallis, neither of those games will be within 45 minutes of driving. Meharry said that for the Ducks to be successful in the up coming Pac-10 games, the team must play with more attitude on the floor — a concept Oregon has been trying to learn since the start of the season. “Sometimes we don’t come out with that killer mentality, when we’re just going to domi nate a team,” Meharry said. “Instead, we come out and think ‘We can’t lose this game,’ instead of ‘We’re going to come out and win this game.’ That’s slowly been changing, and hope fully it will change by next game.” UO finds silver lining on day 3 ■ Oregon has mixed results in its Pac-10 opener, as Adeline Arnaud wins the flight-four championship By Matt O’Neill for the Emerald For the Oregon women's tennis program, the first two days of this year’s Pacific-10 Conference in door tournament will be better off forgotten. But, when the third and final day was finished, there was one shining spot for the Ducks. Sophomore Adeline Arnaud won the flight-four championship. Oregon began the first day of the Pac-lOs with mixed results, as its top-seeded player, Monika Gieczys lost to Kristina Kraszewski of Washington in straight sets, 6-0, 6-3. Freshman Amy Juppenlatz en joyed a little more success in the second flight of singles when she defeated Washington State’s Kathleen Pienaar (7-5, 7-5). But Juppenlatz’s early success was all she would experience. She was then ousted in the second round by Abigail Spears of UCLA by a score of 6-2, 6-2. Oregon’s other entry in the sec ond flight was newcomer Jeanette Mattson. Mattson, who recently joined the team, got a rude welcome to Pac-10 play when she was given a quick exit by Melissa Pine from Washing ton State in . straight sets, ^ 6-4, 6-3. Neither of Oregon’s play ers in the third flight made it into the second round of the main draw, as Janice Nyland lost to UCLA’s Catherina Ha wley by a score of 6-1, 6-1. S arah Colistro beat Emeka Mayes of California in the first set before losing the next two. In the fourth flight all three of the Ducks advanced to the main draw. Sophomore Valerie Young beat Kathy Yi of Washington in straight sets before falling to eventual runner-up, Brooke Tay lor of Arizona, 6-3, 6-2. Walk on Lisa Cummings ad vanced to the semi-finals by de feating Amy Allen of Washing ton, 6-3, 6-0. She then fell to fellow Duck and eventual cham pion, Amaud, in straight sets. After beating Cummings in the semi-finals, Arnaud took on the second-seeded Taylor on Sun day for the championship. It took her only two sets to win the match. Only one of Oregon’s doubles teams recorded an opening round win. The tandem of Juppenlatz and Nyland beat an Arizona duo by the score of 8-3 to advance to the main draw. They were then oust ed by a Husky team by the same 8-3 score. In the second flight, the team of Gieczys and Mattson also lost to a Washington duo, and the combination of Arnaud and Young were set packing by yet another Husky team, 8-4. REGISTRATION IS HAPPENING NOW !!! 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