Sports Editor:
Adam Jude
adamjude@dailyemerald.com
Assistant Sports Editor:
Jeff Smith
jeffsmith@dailyemerald.com
Tuesday, October 30,2001
Best Bet
World Series: Arizona at New York,
5 p.m., FOX
Smith selected as Pac-lO’s Player of the Week
■The Oregon sophomore tailback’s |
career day against the Cougars earns
him recognition from the Pac-10
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
Not surprisingly, the Pacific-10 Conference
took full notice of the record-breaking perform
ance of Onterrio Smith on Saturday.
Smith was announced Monday as the Pac-10’s
Offensive Player of the Week after running all
over Washington State in Oregon’s 24-17 victory
in Pullman, Wash.
The sophomore backup tailback sat out the first
quarter before exploding for 285 yards in the final
three quarters.
The rushing total was 36 yards more than the
previous Oregon school record set by Bobby
Moore, now Ahmad Rashad, in 1971. Smith also
surpassed Rashad in the record books by return
ing three kickoffs for 57 yards for a total of 342 all
purpose yards.
Smith reached the end zone three times Satur
day, with his 73-yard scoring sprint in the fourth
quarter giving the Ducks a 24-10^ead.
“Looking up at the playback board and seeing
all those guys behind me made my face light up,”
Smith said.
He has had games like this before Saturday, but
they occurred back when he was setting single
season school records for Grant High in Sacra
mento, Calif. As a senior, he ran
for 3,154 yards and 60 touch
downs, earning him SuperPrep
All-American status.
“Yeah, it reminded me of
those days a little bit once I start
ed getting the ball, getting the
ball and getting the ball,” Smith said of his per
formance Saturday. “I hadn’t touched the ball that
much in a long time, probably three years.”
Smith became the fifth Oregon player to be
honored by the Pac-10 this year, following Keith
Lewis, Steve Smith, Joey Harrington and
Keenan Howry.
Thomas Patterson Emerald
Sophomore tailback Onterrio Smith scored three touchdowns and ran for a school-record 285 yards in
Saturday’s 24-17 victory over Washington State in Pullman.
Adam Amato Emerald
Tailback Kerry Carter, who scored four touchdowns in Stanford’s 49-42 victory over the Ducks on
Oct. 20, and the rest of the Cardinal are one of five teams with only one loss in the Pac-10.
Five teams vying for Pac-10 title
with one month to play in season
■The Pac-10 race is up for grabs with
the Cougars and Bruins losing, leaving
five teams with only one defeat each
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
Washington State has one loss after losing to
Oregon.
Oregon has one loss after losing to Stanford the
week before.
Stanford has one loss after losing to Washington
State the week before that.
Then there’s UCLA, which suffered its first set
back at Stanford on Saturday.
And don’t forget about those Washington
Huskies, who remained with just one loss after
coming from behind — again — to defeat Arizona
State, 33-31.
In all, there’s a four-way tie for first at 4-1, with
UCLA right behind with a 3-1 Pacific-10 Confer
ence record.
With the season winding down and the different
scenarios of bowl games running the full gamut,
the Pac-10 can cause quite a few headaches.
Which is why players like Oregon defensive
back Rashad Bauman prefer to just take it all in
and enjoy the quality of the conference rather than
worry about all the pesky little details.
“We can’t worry about whether UCLA loses or
Stanford loses next week because we have no con
trol over it,” Bauman said. “But you know what?
It makes it more fun. Oh definitely. It’s always fun
to be in a race to the finish line.
“And that’s what’s great about playing in the
Pac-10. You just never know.”
Bauman points to other conferences around
the nation where the one or two “big dogs” al
ways win it by beating up on their inferior oppo
nents.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Bauman said. “To be
honest, I would much rather be where we are now
in the Pac-10 than have us be 8-0 and everybody
else at 3-5. Week-in and week-out, there’s memo
rable wins that mean so much.”
True, one week a team might be a serious con
tender to play for the national championship in
the Rose Bowl, and the next
week, bowl plans range from
the Fiesta Bowl to the Las Ve
gas Bowl.
UCLA appeared to have the
inside track at playing in its
home stadium on Jan. 3 before
losing Saturday to backup
quarterback Chris Lewis and
the Stanford Cardinal, 38-28.
Oregon fans’ first reaction might have been to
celebrate a Bruins defeat, but in reality, the Ducks
need a Stanford league loss to avoid losing a
tiebreaker with the Cardinal because of the head
to-head matchup.
Stanford travels to Seattle this week to face the
Huskies in its last real Pac-10 test before finishing
out the conference schedule against Arizona (0-5
Pac-10) and California (0-7 overall).
“I think, in my own BCS calculations, it would
have been better if (UCLA),won, but what can you
do?” Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington said.
“Now we’ve got a situation where we beat Wash
ington State who beat Stanford who beat us. And
then you throw UCLA in the mix.
Turn to Pac-10, page 6
CONFERENCE
Conference volleyball race begins to heat up for the stretch run
■As usual, the Conference
of Champions is proving
to be the talk of the nation
By Hank Hager
Oregon Daily Emerald
Just as football in the Pacific-10
Conference begins to heat up, vol
leyball is doing the same. And what
once was a sure thing, is no more.
With two crucial wins, including
one against conference rival and
hated foe California, Stanford im
proved to 10-1 in conference play
and 18-2 overall. More importantly,
the conference win bumped the
Cardinal a half-game ahead of USC
(15-2, 9-1) for the conference lead
after the Trojans lost to Arizona.
The Cardinal easily defeated the
Golden Bears (7
12, 2-9), sweeping
the match in only
80 minutes.
“It’s good to
know that we
have good defense
to fall back on,”
Stanford freshman Ogonna Nna
mani told the Stanford Daily. “It
changes the momentum of the
game and it gets people going and
excited in the match.”
As for the No. 5 Trojans, a tough
loss to Arizona slid them back a
step, but they came back strong Fri
day at Arizona State. A three-game
loss shocked the women of Troy,
but they returned to play and domi
nated Arizona State in another
sweep.
“We met a lot (Thursday) night
and (Friday) morning and we
talked about what happened,” USC
hitter Lauren Killian told the Daily
Trojan about the team’s dismal per
formance against the Wildcats. “It
hurt to lose but I think it was a
game that we learned from and it
will help us in the future.”
USC will need all the help it can
get. Arizona, which also defeated
UCLA (11-5,6-4) Friday, now has a
seven-match winning streak on the
line after defeating the Los Angeles
schools. The streak has allowed the
No. 4 Wildcats to slip back into the
Pac-10 race, and is now 10-3 in
conference play, only one game
back of Stanford.
The Cardinal, however, control
their own destiny because they
have to play two matches more
than Arizona. But the Wildcats visit
Palo Alto, Calif., on Nov. 17 for
their last Pac-10 match.
For the first time this season, the
Wildcats are finally beginning to
play up to their potential. But don’t
expect them to suffer from a let
down.
“All I look at is getting better,”
Arizona head coach David Rubio
said. “When we were struggling to
look ourselves in the mirror in the
morning, it makes you appreciate
where we have come from. I am go
ing to absolutely drill them this
week, so they don’t get overconfi
dent. I don’t want them to think
they can relax, and it is my job to
set the tone.”
With six to seven matches remain
ing for most squads in the confer
Turn to Volleyball, page 6