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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 2000)
15 TVS 3 BIG SCREENS 165W11THIS® 683-8101 Kfll Cocktail Research 947 Franklin Blvd. musique Gourmet Catering to the Discriminating Collector CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED CLASSICAL MUSIC. OPERA, BROADWAY, FILM SCORES & TALKING BOOKS ON COMPACT DISC CD’S FROM $3.95 In the Fifthpearl Building 207 E. 5th Avenue OPEN 7 DAYS Free Parking 343-9000 tsslB Women's Basketball vs. Washington State Come watch the Ducks take a bite out off the Cougars Saturday 7:00 p.m. FREE Admission with Student ID ODE online has it all: news, sports, classifieds, ODE archives, reader polls and Need another reminder? even the weather. UO is still a work in progress ■ I ne ducks Deal Washington by 14 points, but a mostly uninspired performance leaves more to be desired By Mirjam Swanson Oregon Daily Emerald Lisa Bowyer, Sonja Curtis and Natasha O’Brien were there, help ing unfurl last season’s Pacific-10 Conference championship banner. More than 5,000 fans were there for the Oregon women’s basketball team’s Pac-10-home opener, too. They were there to celebrate last season’s championship. To wel come back the Oregon women’s basketball team from its six straight weeks of road games. And to cheer on their team against a Washington program that they’ve grown to seriously disdain. It seemed like all the makings for one heckuva fun game at McArthur Court were in place. It really should have been the perfect atmosphere for the Ducks (12-4 overall, 3-1 Pac-10) to get re juvenated, for them to shake off any and all of their road woes. They could’ve used it to bounce back from last weekend’s embar rassment at Stanford and also to reconvince themselves that they are indeed a championship-cal iber team. When time expired Thursday night Oregon was a 65-51 winner. And everyone left happy but hard ly satisfied with the Ducks’ third Pac-10 win of the season. “Right now, we’re happy to get wins when.we can,” said sopho more point guard Shaquala Williams, who had a game-high 20 points, but hit only 5 of 17 shots. “Of course we’d like to play better, but we’re happy with a win. ” Head coach Jody Runge echoed those sentiments, almost verbatim. “We’re glad we got the win,” she said. “We know we need to play better than that. We need to keep working on it.” A win is a win, no doubt. Espe cially in the midst of such a long season — made to seem longer by the 10-game road trip. But Oregon is lacking the flair and energy that it had prior to the monster trip. Not even a Mac Court homecoming juiced up the Ducks. The crowd wanted so badly to erupt Thursday. And except for some timely three-pointers by Lindsey Dion—who is still recov ering from a concussion she suf fered last Thursday and is playing with torn cartilage in her knee — the fans never got a chance. Credit Washington’s defensive Women continued from page 7 for-17 from the field, but paced the team with 20 points, two as sists and two steals. Brianne Meharry, the only other Duck to score in double-figures, finished with 13 points, six rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block. Although Oregon’s offense sputtered, its defense did not. The Ducks made several key stops down the stretch and held the top three Pac-10 scorers, Megan Franza and Loree Payne, to 15 and 10 points, respectively. “I thought we had a great defen sive effort early in the game,” Runge said. “Our guards did a tremendous job of defending Loree Payne and Megan Franza.” Forward Lindsey Dion re turned to the lineup after sitting out against Stanford. The junior provided the Ducks with several much-needed lifts down the ■ ■ '0 -.■■sA-Mrs*- & O U R T R THUR WOMEN'S BASKETBALi Stott Barnett Emerald Oregon unveils its Pacific-10 Conference Championship banner before the game. schemes for much of that — the Huskies were notably proud of having accomplished their pregame goal of holding Oregon to less than 67 points. “We didn’t give them much to cheer about,” Williams said. “We probably didn’t have the energy we would have had if we would have we’d played better. ” Now, this gets into chickens and eggs. What comes first? The ener gy? Or better play? It’s a circuitous thing, really. Because for the most part, Ore gon looked uninspired Thursday. And the Ducks have to know that it’s going to be hard to defend their Pac-10 title in a conference this competitive if they can’t find their motivation. If they let the effects of their odyssey linger much longer. By all means, Oregon is still exe cuting. Playing hard. Winning. But something is missing. At least for now. stretch, including a 3-pointer on her first possession late in the first half. Dion sat out the game against the Cardinal with a concussion she sustained diving for a lose ball against California last Thurs day. She played 17 minutes against Washington, finishing with eight points, five rebounds, one assist and no turnovers. “My mind was in the game and I knew what was going on, it’s just still a little foggy out there at times,” Dion said. “Not so much while we’re going, but when we stop, and my body stops, my heart rate is still going, and my head is still going too. It’s hard for me to get focused right away like I’d normally be able to.” With Dion coming into the game late in the first half, fresh man Alyssa Fredrick had ample playing time for her second game in a row. The forward finished with five points and three re bounds in 11 minutes. Freshman Kourtney Shreve came off the bench to play five minutes at point guard, and Courtney Moore, Ndidi Unaka and Alissa Edwards all spent time on the floor. “We’re trying to get those young kids as many minutes as we can get them,” Runge said. “They’re very capable of playing, but it’s different when you’re go ing into a game than being at prac tice every day. They’ve got to set tle in and get used to that, and because we’ve been on the road so long, we’ve had very little chance to do that.” Leading 57-43 with 3 minutes, 52 seconds remaining, the Huskies cut the Ducks’ advantage to 10 on back-to-back layups by Payne and Franza. But Meharry hit a jumper and Williams and Nicole Strange made four ftee-throws to seal the win with 55 seconds left.
