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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 2001)
Sports Editor: Adam Jude adamjude@dailyemerald.com Assistant Sports Editor: Jeff Smith jeffsmith@dailyemerald.com Best Bet NLCS: Atlanta at Arizona, 1p.m., Fox Sports Net Tuesday, October 16,2001 Be willing to wait for the joy of success Duck fans, give thanks before you dig into your Track Town pizza tonight. Be thankful for long lines for tickets. Be thankful for full park ing lots. Be thankful for a packed-to-the-gills stadium. Repeat after me: “I will never again complain about getting to Autzen Stadium two hours be fore kickoff to get a decent seat.” Good. You see, I went to Memorial Stadium this Hockaday Two minutes for crosschecking weekend. Call me crazy, but I wanted to see the inner work ings of the ene my. And the enemy is ugly. The enemy (the not-so feared Golden Bear) does not get to the stadi um early. The enemy does not worry about not getting good seats. Fif teen minutes before kickoff, Memorial Stadium is full... of Duck fans. Five minutes to kickoff, the enemy’s student section is half full. The enemy’s student section is at midfield, people. Some Ore gon student fans would kill their mothers for 50-yard-line seats. By the end of the first quarter, the Ducks are up 21-0. This is when students start trickling out. By the end of the third quarter, with Oregon up 42-0, only diehards remained. And there weren’t many. So, Duck fans, be thankful for what you have. Be thankful for real tickets, instead of the raffle tickets sold by Cal, which make you want to collect four and hop on the Ferris wheel. Be thankful that you don’t have a pep-rally guy with a speaker leading cheers for the student section, like Cal does. When the Bears scored in the fourth quarter, putting Oregon’s lead at 35 points, this peppy preppy screamed like a school girl into his microphone: “C’mon guys, let’s make some noise! We’ve still got time left!” Except there wouldn’t be enough time in a year for Cal to come back and beat Oregon. The game was a joke, with Cal as the punch line. Most of all, Duck fans should be thankful for Duck fans. Even on the road, they are a 12th Ore gon man on the field. Even on the road, they stand and cheer for a key third-down stop on de fense, or a big run downfield. Even on the road, Duck fans are obnoxious and peaceful at the Turn toHockaday, page 12 Thomas Patterson Emerald Oregon State running back Ken Simonton, seen here in the 1999 Civil War game, said the Beavers “were not fighting for each other” during their 1-3 start this season. The Beavers bounced back to beat Arizona on Saturday 38-3. Simonton bounces back with Arizona ■The Beavers got back on track with a big win against the ’Cats after Ken Simonton freely spoke his mind By Jeff Smith Oregon Daily Emerald In the week leading up to Oregon State’s game against Arizona, tailback Ken Simonton didn’t mince words in regards to his team’s state of mind. He was pissed. He was frustrated. And he let the public know about it during his weekly press conference. “I’ve been more frustrated with how we’ve played, not that we’ve lost,” Simonton said. “I can deal with getting beat, but when you don’t go out and fight, it’s just like watching two kids on the playground and one’s getting swung in a circle getting punched. It’s like, ‘Man, fight back. You’re already getting hit. What’s it going to cost you to swing back?’ “That’s been kind of the most frustrat ing part for me, guys on my side of the ball — we just look soft on of fense, all 11 of us.” A few days later, the Beavers “swung back” and took out their frustrations against the visit ing Wildcats, rolling to a 38-3 victory Saturday night at Reser Stadium. The win came when Oregon State needed it most. Up to that point, the season had been embarrassing — for Oregon State and for Sports Illustrat Turnto Football, page 12 In toughest volleyball league, USC stays on top ■biamora, uuLAana Ubu do battle, but only one team comes out alive and in first By Hank Hager Oregon Daily Emerald In the world of volleyball, the Pacific-10 Conference reigns supreme. The Stanfords, Southern Califomias and Arizonas annually defeat the best-of-the-best in the nation, but when it comes down to conference play, matches can get downright nasty. That’s exactly what happened when Stanford (14-2 overall, 7-1 Pac-10) traveled south to take on UCLA and USC last week. The Cardinal, ranked fourth in the nation at the outset of both matches, took a 6-0 conference record with them. USC (12-1,7-0), on the other hand, was ranked one better at No. 3, but was also unde feated at 5-0. At the same token, UCLA (10-3,5-2) was at No. 5, hav ing gone 4-1 in conference play. Now only USC is undefeated. After outlasting Stanford in four games 128-30, 30-28, 30-22, 30-26) on Friday, the Trojans swept the California Golden Bears (5-9,1-7), 30-25,30-26,30-19. Leading the women of Troy was defensive specialist Nicole Davis, who notched seven service aces against Stanford. “Davis is good,” USC head coach Mick Haley told the Daily Trojan. “She’s a big-time player and she can bring the heat.” After losing the first set in a match attended by stand ing-room-only crowd of 1,205 at Lyon Center, the Trojans came back strong and fixed the problems that plagued them in the first game. “I told them they were too inter ested in winning and not interest ed enough in executing,” Haley said. “We set the left side a lot in a row and we got out of rhythm run ning the middle, then they clamped us a couple of times and I just really wanted them to play first-ball sideout. That game was ours to win, not Stanford’s to lose.” Strong words from the USC coach, but after seven Pac-10 match es, the Trojans stand in first place, one half-game ahead of Stanford, who is now 7-1 after defeating UCLA in five Thursday night. Although the Bruins took a hard loss that night (27-30,25-30,30-27, 30-24, 15-13) after starting off strong, UCLA head coach Andy Banachowski knew the impor tance of the play he had just seen. After all, it was a spirited contest between two teams in the top five. “It was two heavyweights going after each other out there,” he told the Daily Bruin. “I certainly had the best seat in the house. ” With two matches left for most teams in the first-half, USC is in first, followed closely by Stanford, Ore gon State (12-4,5-2) and UCLA. Milestone kiltin’ With 21 kills last week against Oregon State and Idaho State, senior Monique Tobbagi is now four kills away from 1,000 for her career. If she plays against Arizona on Thursday at McArthur Court, she will most assuredly hit that mark. Her 21 kills were not enough to keep her in sixth place in the Pac-lO’s active career leaders. Washington redshirt senior Lisa Underhill hit for a combined 22 kills against Arizona and Ari zona State, bumping her one spot ahead with 997 career kills. Fox Sports Net, part two Thursday’s match against Arizona State will be televised by Fox Sports Net, the second time in as many weeks the Ducks will be on television. Against Oregon State last week, the Ducks took the perfect time to impress, as FSN visited Gill Coli seum. They lost in four games, but looked the strongest they had all season. Thursday’s match is set to start at 7 p.m. at McArthur Court, but is planned to air Saturday at 10 a m. Turn to Volleyball, page 10
