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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2001)
Can’t catch me: Ducks establish run ■ Oregon s running game finally cranked into gear against Utah State, as Morris and Smith ran for big games By Peter Hockaday Oregon Daily Emerald Run, run, run, ’til your Aggie takes your two feet away. That was the strategy of the Ore gon football team as they beat Utah State 38-21 on Saturday in Logan, Utah. Senior tailback Maurice Morris broke out for a career-high 175 yards in his first big game of the year, which was the first time Oregon’s had a 100-yard rusher this season. Amazingly, backup Onterrio Smith nearly eclipsed the century mark, finishing with 98 yards on the ground. “The O-line did a great job. The holes were huge,” Oregon quarter back Joey Harrington told the As sociated Press. “This is a good con fidence builder that we can run the ball now.” Harrington was not overshad owed by the running game in any sense. The senior signal-caller threw 17 passes for 261 yards, passed for two touchdowns and ran for anoth er. But the focus of many in Logan was Morris and the Oregon running game, which struggled in earlier games against Wisconsin, Utah and Southern California. Getting Morris on track was one the biggest concerns coming into Saturday’s game. A second-team all-Pac-10 back last year, Morris av eraged only 54 yards per game be fore Saturday’s running explosion. Smith, in limited action, was aver aging 42.3 yards per game. Before Saturday’s game, head coach Mike Bellotti said there was Adam Amato Emerald Senior Maurice Morris rushed for a career-high 175 yards Saturday against Ohio State. “tons of room for improvement” in the running game. Then the runners improved Sat urday. Morris asserted himself ear ly, with help from the offensive line. By the time the game was over, the two running backs had a combined 273 yards on 37 rushes and two touchdowns. “Morris had a couple runs that I think will go down in history,” Bel lotti said Sunday after watching the video tape. “I’m surprised peo ple haven’t been awed by them more. They were just flat-out awe some.” Oregon set the tone early by giv ing to Morris on the first drive of the game. In the second quarter, Morris helped Oregon to its first touchdown with two rushes for 20 yards at the start of the drive. In the fourth quarter, Morris put the game away for good with a ca reer-long 69-yard touchdown run with 8:19 on the clock. That big gain came four minutes after Smith’s four-yard touchdown run put Oregon up 31-21. “We ran the ball well in the sec ond half and that helped us out,” Harrington said. Harrington also rushed for a touchdown in the second quarter. The signal-caller ended up with 14 yards rushing in the game. The Oregon rushing corps lost a valuable member, Allan Amund son, to injury early in the game. Amundson was on crutches after the game, but did not break a bone. He will be out for two to six weeks. Duck men finish 11th in Minnesota ■ Hartmann and crew finished 11th for the men’s cross country team, but the women didn’t fare as well By Chris Cabot Oregon Daily Emerald It was a star-studded cast at the Roy Griak Invitational on Saturday, and the Ducks did not shine as brightly as they had hoped. There were 14 top 25 teams in the 36-team men’s field, and 11 top-25 teams in the 32-team women’s meet. Overall, the No. 16 Oregon men’s team finished 11th with a score of 326, while the women took 28th beating only Iowa State, Coastal Carolina, Army and Youngstown State. Pacific-10 Conference rival Arizona State won the women’s race with 109 points and Arizona finished in third place with 167. No. 9 Providence finished with 139 points for second place. Wisconsin won the men’s race with Portland and Providence Col lege finishing second and third, re spectively. The Ducks did run well enough to beat five top-25 ranked teams — No. 10 Georgetown, No. 11 William and Mary, No. 12 Arizona, No. 20 Minnesota and No. 25 Air Force. That will help them at the end of the season when they are try ing to receive an at-large bid to go to the NCAA Championships. Individually, Jason Hartmann led the Ducks, placing 12th with a time of 23:31.7. Following the All-American junior on the eight kilometer course were Seth Pilkington (52nd, 25:01.4), Ryan Andrus (84th, 25:15.6), Noel Paulson (85th, 25:16.0), Brett Holts (93rd, 25:19.4), John Lucas (98th, 25:21.9) and Eric Logsdon (116th, 25:29.6). Junior Carrie Zografos was the first to finish for the Duck women, as she did in Oregon’s last race . She was 99th overall with a time of 22:32.2 over the 6K course. Zo grafos was followed by Laura Har mon (106th, 22:35.8), Magdalena Sandoval (162nd, 23:04.0), Erinn Gulbrandsen (180th, 23:19.1), Ali cia Snyder-Carlson (188th, 23:24.0), Annette Mosey (199th, 23:41.2) and Sara Schaaf (210th, 24:23.8). Head coach Tom Heinonen ques tioned the pace at which the women came out of the blocks. “Our runners started very conser vatively, and it backfired on us,” he said. “They moved up during the race but were just too far back.” In order for Heinonen’s squad to have a shot at going to the NCAA Championships, a feat they have accomplished in 24 of his 26 years as head coach, they need to com pete better and beat some of the top ranked teams in the nation — something they have had difficulty doing up to this point. “It was disappointing, but I still think we can be better,” Heinonen said about Saturday’s race. The meet was held on the Les Bol stad Golf Course and hosted by the University of Minnesota. The Gold en Gopher men finished 17th, while the women ran to a 12th place finish. The Oregon harriers’ next race is on Oct. 13 at the Furman Invite in Greenville, South Carolina. Mdk£ Yo\j Gp/zk£s> 012461 Sign up for It’s easy... Just go to the UO Health Center at 13th and Agate. But don’t miss the deadline. Sign-up runs now through October 5th. Review details of the plan on our web page: http://heal thcenter.uoregon .edu ♦ Any questions? Call 346-3702 ♦ UNIVERSITY OF OREGON U N I V E R S I T Y HEALTH CENTER We’re a matter of degrees ^
