More mixed results for UO ■ Oregon freshmen continue to excel, picking up singles wins for the men and women By Robbie McCallum Oregon Daily Emerald One would expect a veteran team to be hitting its stride at this point of the season and a team of mostly rookies to be experiencing growing pains, but in the Oregon tennis teams’ cases, the exact op posite is happening. The Oregon men and their five freshmen won their fifth match in six tries this weekend, bring ing their season record to one game above the .500 mark at 7-6. The veteran women’s squad however, dropped two matches in Fresno, Calif, this weekend, leaving head coach Jack Griffin looking for an swers. On the men’s side, Duck fresh men went 4-2 in singles play to lead Oregon over Portland and Santa Clara bv identical scores of 6-1. Newcomer Buck Mink led the way with two straight-set wins over Portland’s Jeff Nunnenkamp and Santa Clara’s Victory Camargo. “Buck has been on fire the last few weeks,” Oregon men’s coach Chris Russell said. “He is one of the guys on the team who plays solidly. We know what he’s going to do on the court.” Mink also teamed with sopho more Jason Menke for two domi nating doubles victories against the Pilots and Bronco’s. Fellow freshman Martin Pawlowski came through at the No. 2 singles position despite bat tling the flu. The Norrkoping, Swe den, native picked up his first back-to-back singles victories of the season. “Martin was a big factor all weekend,” Russell said. “Not hav ing him fully healthy and battling through his matches was phenom enal for us.” The Ducks’ veterans also per formed well this weekend. Sopho more Oded Teig added to his team leading wins mark (18) with victories over aces Peter Malacek of Portland and Ryan Livesay of Santa Clara. Menke moved one match above the .500 mark with two singles victories. The men close out their home schedule on Saturday against Port land State. The Duck women have as many returning players as the men have rookies, but are amidst a five match losing streak at the mid-sea son mark. Oregon lost a narrow 4 3 decision to Loyola Marymount on Saturday before falling to No. 30 Fresno State 4-2 on Sunday. Oddly enough, the Ducks’ two freshman have been the most reli able lately. Freshman Courtney Nagle picked up singles wins in each of Oregon’s losses this week end, bringing her win total to 10. Fellow freshman Davina Mendiburu earned Oregon’s sec ond point against Fresno State, de feating the Bulldogs’ Courtney Jantz, 6-3, 6-2. On Saturday, the Ducks came within a point of defeating Loyola Marymount, but were edged in a crucial three-set singles match at the No. 2 position. Oregon capital ized on winning the doubles point with wins by Mendiburu and jun ior Janice Nyland, 8-5 and junior Adeline Arnaud and sophomore Jeanette Mattsson, 8-6. In singles, only Mendiburu and Nyland were able to win. On Sunday, rain put an end to any Oregon comeback hopes against Fresno State. The Bulldogs led 3-1 when an unexpected storm hit, canceling the final three matches. Junior transfer Vickie Gunnar son fought Fresno State’s Simone Jardim to the third set, but because Jardim led 2-1, she was awarded the win. No. 48 ranked Leisl Fitch bauer needed only one point to de feat Mattsson at the No. 2 spot. Oregon drops to 3-5 on the sea son and heads to Washington next weekend for Pacific-10 Conference matches against Washington and Washington State. Men’s continued from page 9 urday’s final score could have been much worse. Needless to say, Oregon’s (13-14, 4-13) season presumably has just one game left, and for the first time in weeks, not a single player or coach brought up the NIT. “To know exactly when your season is over ... you never want that,” said junior guard Freddie Jones, who could only muster four points to follow up his career-high of 36 against Arizona State on Thursday. “I came out and didn’t play how my team needed me to play.” But this loss was hardly Jones’ fault. One man couldn’t have pre vented the assault that the ninth ranked team in the nation put on. The Ducks were handed a text book blowout. Oregon actually played with Arizona for the first few minutes and were only down 10-9 when Tucson-native Anthony Norwood knocked down two of his seven points with just over 15 minutes to play in the half. Then Arizona’s Gilbert Arenas drilled two free throws, Loren Woods swished a jumper, and Michael Wright converted a buck et. And the rout was on. Oregon was held scoreless for just less than six minutes during a stretch in which Arizona outscored the Ducks 25-4. Soon, the run turned into a 41-8 Wildcat advantage. Thanks to Ben Lindquist’s two last-minute three-pointers, the Ducks entered the half only trail ing 55-25. “They got a great start and had all the momentum, and it just had a snowball effect,” said freshman Luke Jackson, who was the only Duck to score in double figures with 15. “It hurts, especially in this fashion. I don’t think anyone on this team likes to lose like that.” Things didn’t get much better in the second half. Arizona opened the last frame with a 26-7 run to take an incredible 81-34 lead at the 11:36 mark. It got even worse. When Arizona senior Eugene Edgerson put in a rebound basket, it put his team ahead 89-38 with still 9:21 to play. That’s a 51-point lead — the largest of the game. But then Arizona head coach Lute Olson loosened his reigns and let the youngsters and the de parting seniors have some fun to gether. “It was a great day for us,” Olson said. “We had the chance to give everybody a substantial amount of playing time.” The stat sheet again was ugly for the Ducks. Oregon had 26 turnovers (16 in the first half), committed 29 fouls and was out rebounded 41-25. Arizona, mean while, had all five starters score in double figures with Wright leading the balanced attack with 18. The one Duck that showed up to play early was Norwood, but his seven first-half points were his only ones, as foul trouble plagued the guard in his return home. He fouled out with 12:02 to play. “Very frustrating,” Norwood said. “It’s built up to that. We let ourselves get to that. We’ve got to make some changes.” Besides the emotion of the Ari zona seniors, who were honored after the game in a lengthy ceremo ny, Oregon had to deal with the re venge factor. After the Ducks beat the Wild cats in Eugene earlier this season, many Arizona players mentioned how they were looking forward to Oregon's visit to Tucson. “The way we played up there [at Oregon], we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Woods, who scored 17 points. “But we knew they were coming down here.” Men’s Pac-10 standings: Pac-10 overall Stanford 15-1 27-1 Arizona 13-3 21-7 UCLA 13-3 20-7 California 10-6 19-9 USC 9-7 19-9 Arizona St. 5-11 13-14 Washington St. 5-11 12-14 Oregon 4-13 13-14 Oregon St.4-13 10-19 Washington 3-13 9-19 Since Oregon’s win on Feb. 1, both teams have gone in opposite directions. The loss was a wake-up call for Arizona, which has since won seven of eight and is prepar ing for a date at No. 1 Stanford on Thursday. Oregon, on the other hand, has dropped eight of its past nine in that span and 13 out of 16 overall since starting the season 10-1 after beating Oregon State on Jan. 6. Now, the Ducks have a losing record for the first time all season and face the task of having to beat the Beavers in Corvallis next Sat urday just to finish 14-14. Techni cally, a .500 record would make the Ducks NIT eligible, although they’re not holding their breath for an invitation. With the way the Ducks played in this trip to Arizona, they had the look of a fatigued team that was just waiting for the season to end. But according to many Ore gon players, that couldn’t be far ther from the truth. “I don’t feel that way, and I hope nobody else does,” Jackson said. “If that’s our last game [Saturday], I’d like to end on a winning note. I’d like my team to be known as a team that fights to the end. “I don’t want this to happen again.” Oregor PHOTO SPECIALS MARCH 5-11 2ND SET FREE! 3x5 prints: 12 exp $2.25 24 exp $4.25 36 exp $6.25 4x6 prints: 12 exp $3.25 24 exp $6.25 36 exp $9.25 From 35mm color negative film only. 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