Women’s side
continued from page 9
Tournament, but more importantly,
helped extend the team’s streak to
eight consecutive appearances in
the tournament.
What they’ve accomplished has
come in the face of adversity. First
came the issues surrounding for
mer coach Jody Runge’s resigna
tion, and now with the entrance of
Bev Smith and her style, the Ducks
have struggled.
“They have been through the
toughest year in a coaching transi
tion,” the first-year head coach
said. “It’s been a tough year for
them, but they’ve responded.”
Unaka and Fredrick began the
season as the starting frontcourt for
the Ducks, but have since been re
placed. That didn’t matter on sen
ior night, as the two joined Craig
head and Curry on the floor to start
the game.
The four seniors made their pres
ence known immediately.
After junior Alissa Edwards
missed a shot to start the game,
Fredrick followed with two layups.
One minute later, Craighead hit a
jumper, and after Edwards fol
lowed with another, Craighead did
it again. However, this time, the one
she hit came from beyond the
three-point arc.
The Elma, Wash., native finished
the night 4-of-5, including 2-of-3
from downtown. Known for her
three-point prowess, Craighead
nailed her last one in a regular sea
son game at Mac Court with 7:08
left in the first half. Fittingly, it
came from junior Shaquala
Williams, who, had it not been for
a torn anterior cruciate ligament
last season, would have ended her
Oregon home career as well.
In the first eight minutes of the
game, the Ducks posted 15 points.
Thirteen of those came from
the seniors.
And when it was all said and
done, the four contributed with a
combined 32 points.
“I think that the win tonight is
because the seniors stepped on the
floor and did all of the things we
talked about to win a basketball
game,” Smith said.
But the win over California won’t
be the final time these four will step
on the floor at the Pit. Oregon hosts
the inaugural Pacific-10 Conference
Tournament, beginning March 1,
and each knows what they will
need to do to win it all.
The only way for the four to win
their final game at the storied gym
is to win the tournament.
“(The game) got a little emotion
al, but not really, because I know
I’ve got (at least) one more game
here,” Unaka said.
And Craighead, who has been a
leader for the Ducks in her career,
showed no emotion at the end of
the game, instead deciding to save
it for the tournament.
“I didn’t cry tonight,” she said.
“I’ve cried at every senior night ex
cept my own.”
E-mail sports reporter Hank Hager
at hankhager@dailyemerald.com.
Wrestling
continued from page 9
how his athletes were competing
through the entire meet.
“Both last night and this after
noon, our guys are wrestling the
full seven minutes,” he said on Sat
urday. “Whether we are ahead by
one or behind by seven, we’re still
out there attacking our opponents
the entire time.”
In the Oregon loss to Cal Poly on
Saturday, the Ducks were clearly
hindered by the absence of
Williams at 125-pounds. Beginning
the meet at 184-pounds, Cal Poly’s
Charles Sandin defeated Soto 9-5
and the Mustangs never surren
dered the lead.
r
Jake Leair and heavyweight No.
19 Eric Webb won the next two
matches for Oregon, but the Ducks
fell behind 13-6 from the forfeit at
125 and Jason Harless’s major deci
sion loss to Cal Poly’s 133-pounder
Nathaniel Ybarra.
Oregon charged back with three
straight wins from Hunt, Overstake
and Harris to close the gap to 15-16
in favor of the Mustangs, which
brought up an important final
match involving Webster and No.
13 Steve Strange.
“Steve Strange is very tough and
has a lot of other things on his
side,” 'Kearney said. “But with
Shane, you are talking about a guy
that is extremely hard to wrestle.
He wrestles with great intensity
and is very physical.”
Webster led the match after the
first period after a takedown and a
Strange escape, but the Cal Poly
junior proved too much for Web
ster. Strange’s 8-5 win sealed a 19
15 victory for the Mustangs.
“We were surprised Webster got
after him like that,” Harris said.
“That was a really quality guy that
he was wrestling, and if he could
have pulled out the win, that
would have been great.”
The Ducks compete next against
Oregon State on Wednesday at 7
p.m. in Mac Court.
E-mail sports reporter Chris Cabot
at chriscabot@dailyemerald.com.
Men’s
continued from page 9
“I was guarding Tamir; I let him
get loose,” Jones said. “I’ll take the
loss on my shoulders.”
Oregon’s Luke Jackson, who
scored a career-high 29 points, had
a chance to pull the Ducks within
one point with 8.2 seconds left, but
missed two free throws. Tamir
made a free throw at the California
end to seal the Golden Bear win.
Tamir was a thorn in Oregon’s
side all game long, hitting 14 of the
19 shots he took, including 5-of-6
three pointers. The Ducks have
seen several big performances from
opposing individuals this season,
including 41 points from Stanford’s
Casey Jacobsen on Thursday night,
35 from Washington State’s Marcus
Moore, 32 from Jacobsen in Janu
ary, and 30 from Washington’s
Doug Wrenn.
Tamir’s previous career high
was 19, scored against Oregon
in January.
“The rim looked so big tonight,”
Tamir said. “Everything I threw up
went in.”
For most of the first half, the
Ducks had a similarly big rim. Ore
gon started the game with a 10-5
run and built the lead to 45-26 with
2:22 left in the first frame. The
Ducks ended the half shooting 66.7
percent from the floor.
But as soon as Oregon went up
by 19, California started chipping
the Ducks’ lead back to zero. Tamir
scored seven straight points at the
end of the first half to bring the
score to 48-35, and the Golden
Bears started the second half as
strong as they ended the first. A
three-pointer from forward Joel
Shipp with 13:24 pulled the Bears
within five.
With the Haas Pavilion crowd go
ing wild and 11:38 on the clock,
Legans hit an NBA-range three
pointer to put California ahead for
the first time, 61-58.
“We knew we should have been
playing better than we played in
the first half,” Legans said. “We
knew we just had to battle.”
The teams did battle all the way
down the stretch until the final
seconds, when Oregon’s Jones
had a chance to win the game in
regulation. With less than 10 sec
onds left and the score tied at 82,
Jones collected the rebound on a
Legans miss, drove down the
court and missed a floater from
eight feet out.
In the first overtime, the Ducks
had another chance to win after
Cal almost handed the game away.
With less than 10 seconds left,
Legans passed to forward Ryan
Forehan-Kelly, who mishandled
the ball out of bounds with 2.1
seconds on the clock. Jackson sent
the ensuing inbounds pass all the
way to halfcourt, where Jones col
lected it, got to the three-point line
and launched a shot with two de
fenders in his face. The shot hit
the front iron, and the game re
mained tied at 89 and headed for
a second overtime.
Kent was able to put the loss into
perspective.
“We’re heartbroken,” Kent said.
“But it’s not like we’re a bad basket
ball team. We’ll rebound.”
Oregon is now 13-0 at home, 4-7
away from McArthur Court and 2
4 on the road in the conference.
The Ducks have only two remain
ing away games, against UCLA and
Southern California at the end of
the season.
Oregon returns home to face Ore
gon State in the second installment
of this year’s Civil War on Saturday.
E-mail sports reporter Peter Hockaday
at peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com.
01342a
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