Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports
Best bet
MLB Playoffs:
San Francisco at Atlanta
5:20 p.m., FOX
Monday, October 7,2002
Line em
up: Duck
lines shine
at Arizona
Oregonis offensive and defensive
lines help the Ducks to their 31-14
victory Saturday in Tucson
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
There was a line of scrimmage drawn
in the desert Saturday, and the Oregon
football team dominated it on both sides.
The Ducks’ often-unheralded offensive
and defensive lines shone Saturday in
Oregon’s 31-14 win over Arizona in Tuc
son. By substituting often, head coach
Mike Bellotti kept his linemen fresh and
enabled the Ducks to reel off 24 unan
swered points as they came back from
deficits of 7-0 and 14-7 in the win.
Oregon quarterback Jason Fife, who
threw for 244 yards, two touchdowns
and no interceptions, and running back
Onterrio Smith, who rushed for 145
yards and two touchdowns, both benefit
ed immensely from the solid play of the
offensive line.
“I give credit to the (offensive) line
people because our protection was awe
some for Jason all day long, and the abili
ty to run the football by Onterrio was set
up by their blocking up front,” Bellotti
told KUGN radio after the game.
The offensive line allowed two sacks
early in the contest but gave Fife more
and more time to throw as the game
wore on. That time allowed the junior
signal-caller to engineer two crucial scor
ing drives that put Oregon ahead for
good.
The first drive was a five-play drive
Turn to Lines, page 8
Kevin Klaus Arizona Daily Wildcat
Jason Fife threw for244 yards and two touchdowns in Oregon's 31 -14 win on Saturday.
Wild night
in Tucson,
Ducks win
After a slow start, the Ducks surge to a
31-14 win behind another 100-yard effort
by Ontenio Smith and a strong offense
Oregon 31
Arizona 14
Adam Jude
Senior Sports Reporter
There’s nothing like a little scare to start the
day. Or, in Oregon’s case, a jolting wake-up call
to start Pacific-10 Conference play.
Arizona scored on its first possession Saturday
and jumped out to a 14-7 first-quarter lead over the
No. 7 Ducks at Arizona Stadium in Tucson, Ariz.
Then the Oregon defense, like a sleeping giant,
awoke from its preseason haze to shut out the
Wildcats (3-2 overall, 0-1 Pac-10) in the final three
quarters of a 31-14 Oregon win.
The Ducks (5-0, 1-0), the defending Pac-10
champions, have won 10 consecutive games, the
second-longest streak in the nation behind Miami.
“Any time you can get a road win in the Pac-10
is great,” Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti told
KUGN-radio after the game. “I think we started off
slow and we were our own worst enemy, but I
thought the defense improved dramatically as the
game went on.”
The Oregon defense held Arizona to 30 yards
on the ground and recorded five sacks, including
the first career quarterback takedown for fresh
man tackle Haloti Ngata.
Offensively, tailback Onterrio Smith kept the
Ducks in the game in the first half.
Smith continued his assault of opposing defens
es and the record books, as he finished with 145
yards on 28 carries and two touchdowns. He has
Turn to Arizona, page 8
Harmon leads Oregon to third at Willamette
Emerald
Laura Harmon (10) finished 14th overall at the Willamette Invitational, pacing the Ducks to a
3rd-place finish at the daylong race in Salem. Harmon was the top Oregon finisher.
With two top runners injured, Oregon
makes a strong showing Saturday in Salem
Cross Country
Mindi Rice
Freelance Sports Reporter
SALEM — Despite missing two of its top runners
because of injury, the Oregon women’s cross coun
try team finished third in Saturday’s 28th annual
Willamette Invitational at Bush’s Pasture Park.
Junior Laura Harmon finished 14th in the race
in 17 minutes and 41 seconds, dropping 10 sec
onds from her seventh-place time last year.
“I wanted them to come away feeling they
raced better than last week,” head coach Tom
Heinonen said. “We trained really hard this week,
so some of them looked a little tired, as expected,
and that was part of the goal — to help tune-up
before Pre-Nationals.”
Senior Carrie Zografos and junior Magdalena
Sandoval were both held out of the meet with in
juries. Zografos sat out with a slight calf injury,
while Sandoval had an injured hamstring.
“Erinn (Gulbrandsen) was our highlight runner
today,” Heinonen said. “It was by far her best
performance for us in a couple of years and a real
boost. She gives us a real strong sixth runner
when we get Carrie and Magdalena back in
the picture.”
Gulbrandsen (25th), freshman Nicole Feest
(26th) and redshirt junior Eri Macdonald (28th)
all finished within six seconds of each other.
“During the race, I thought Nicole, Erinn and
Eri did a decent job working together, and en
couraging each other, especially in a big field,”
Heinonen said. “I was also please that several of
our runners ran faster today than they have be
fore on this course.”
Redshirt junior Alicia Snyder-Carlson, who
was working through sore Achilles tendons last
week, finished fifth for the Ducks and 58th over
all in 18:57.
Other runners in the meet for Oregon were
freshmen Krissy Sonniksen (60th, 18:59) and
Chelsea Manesh (71st, 19:16), redshirt sopho
more Taylor Bryant (74th, 19:18), redshirt fresh
man Haripurkh Khalsa (90th, 19:49) and fresh
man Sabrina Turner (92nd, 19:51).
"During this race, I thought
Nicole, Erinn and Eri did a decent
job working together, and
encouraging each other,
especially in a big field"
Tom Heinonen
head coach
The Willamette Invitational, hosted by
Willamette University, is the largest collegiate cross
country meet on the West Coast — 44 teams and
444 finishers raced in two women’s races.
This year’s Invitational was held in honor of
Peter Lundblad, a member of the Willamette
cross country team who died July 5. The
Willamette students who raced and volunteered
at the meet wore red ribbons around their heads
in his memory.
The women have two weeks to train and rest
before heading to Indiana for Pre-Nationals on
Oct. 19, where both the men and women are
scheduled to race.
Mindi Rice is a freelance writer for the Emerald.