Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 18, 2002)
Sports Editor Peter Hockaday peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com Friday, October 18,2002 -Oregon Daily Emerald Sports Best bet NCAA Football: Fresno State at Boise State 5 p.m., ESPN Kickers face tall tasks at Cal, Stanford The Ducks head south this weekend to face their greatest challenge yet: two tough California teams Soccer Jesse Thomas Sports Reporter The Oregon women’s soccer team is heading to the Bay Area this weekend to face the ultimate test. The Ducks will match up with 1 lth-ranked Gal today at 3:30 p.m., then face No.l-ranked Stanford on Sunday. “We are always excited for challenges, but it is a question of how we respond,” head coach Bill Steffen said. “It will be nice because the players can be away from our setting here and re lax a little more and have a bit of down time.” Oregon has never won against either the Golden Bears or the Cardinal, losing five times to both teams. It will be a tough chal lenge for the Ducks because in the past five years they have only scored once on both teams and have lost by a combined score of 27-2. “It’s going to take us having a pretty complete effort in terms of both our desire and our work rate as well as our exe cution,” Steffen said. “If we can get all cylinders firing, we’re a good team and we can play with anybody in the country and expect a good result.” Gal, like Oregon, has faced a rough schedule this season but has beaten three top-15-ranked teams. Freshman midfielder Tra cy Hamm leads the team in goals with seven and points with 44. In goal, junior Sani Post has started six of the last nine matches for the Bears with 25 saves and a 0.86 goal allowed av erage. Gal has made four-straight NCAA appearances and claimed the Pac-10 title in 1998. “Gal is going to be a little more blue collar-ish, more straight forward and a little more hard-working,” Steffen said. Stanford is rolling and just moved into the top national spot with North Carolina’s loss to North Carolina State last week end. The Cardinal are 11-1-0 — with their only loss coming to the Tar Heels — and have held five top-20 teams scoreless, in cluding No.4 Texas and No.6 Texas A&M. Junior forward Marcie Ward leads Stanford in goals, with sev en, and shots, with 42. Sophomore goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart has been on fire as she was named Pac-10 Player of the Week last weekend for her shutouts against USC and UCLA accumu lating 12 saves. “Stanford is going to be more technical because they’ve got some players that are very good on the ball,” Steffen said. “Stanford is on a roll, and it will be a test for us to see if we can stop that roll.” Oregon is 1-8-2 overall, 0-1-1 in Pac-10 play, and is coming off a loss to Washington last weekend to start conference play. The Ducks faced Washington State on Sunday at Pape Field and came away with a 1-1 tie in double-overtime. If the Ducks can work together and force their opponents to make a few costly mistakes, they may have a chance in games that seem to present none. “We just need to work together, because when we work to gether, we click and everything comes together,” freshman for Ducks start slow, fall hard to Wildcats in shootout at Mac The Oregon volleyball team comes on strong in game 3 but can’t pull out of a sweep against Arizona Volleyball Hank Hager Sports Reporter It was supposed to be a matchup be tween two of the Pacific-10 Conference’s most equally balanced teams. Instead, a freshman from Lancaster, Pa., stole the show. Kim Glass, the current Pac-10 volley ball player of the week, struck 20 kills as Arizona defeated Oregon in three straight games (30-19, 30-18, 30-28) Thursday in front of 506 fans at McArthur Court. Glass posted just three kills in game 1 but came back strong in games 2 and 3, hitting for eight and nine kills, re spectively. She finished with a .410 hit ting percentage and had two service aces and 10 digs to,go along with her of fensive prowess. “She just jumped out of the gym,” Ore gon senior Lindsay Closs said. “(She) hit straight over us. She’s jumping over you. There’s not much you can do about it. You just try and dig her.” The five freshmen on the Arizona ros ter accounted for 29 of the Wildcats’ 54 kills of the night, highlighted by Glass’ ef fort but also strengthened by Bre Ladd’s eight strikes. Ladd also finished with a superior percentage, .467, although she had 25 less attempts. Oregon, not to be outdone, put up a fight in game 3 after two sub-par sets. Freshman Dariam Acevedo led the Ducks with 11 kills and Closs had 10. But it was a five point run midway through the final set that propelled Oregon to a close finish. A kill by senior Sydney Chute started - the run that eventually ended on a Closs kill, pulling the Ducks to within two, 17-15. “Making adjustments as the match progresses is a key part of your success Turn to Volleyball, page 6A Adam Amato Emerald Lindsay Closs can't block an Arizona spike Thursday night, and the Ducks couldn't block a loss. Jeremy Forrest Emerald Amanda Orand (3) and the Ducks take on top competition this week. ward Valerie Mayer said. “They have some good forwards and a couple players in the back that are strong, so we just have to find all their weaknesses.” Contact the sports reporter atjessethomas@dailyemerald.com. Women harriers travel east for national meet The Ducks will race against second-ranked Stanford and others at the Pre-National meet Cross Country Mindi Rice Freelance Sports Reporter The Oregon women’s cross country team is on tour this weekend. The Ducks are touring and previewing the course on which the NCAA Championships will be held at the end of the season in Saturday’s Pre-National meet. The team, which has been unranked all season, travels to Terre Haute, Ind., for the meet. The Ducks will be running in the second of two women’s Division-I races. They are racing against 37 other teams, 18 of which are either ranked or have received votes in the national poll. “If we could finish top-15 or better, we could help ourselves,” head coach Tom Heinonen said. The Ducks need as many wins as they can get against other po tential NCAA participants. The championships feature 31 teams; 18 come from the nine regional meets Nov. 16, and the other 13 will earn at-large berths based on regional finish and regular-sea son wins against the 18 automatically-qualifying teams. In the White Race, which Oregon is running in, three teams ranked in the Top 10 will be the Ducks’ stiffest competition. Second-ranked Stanford, sixth-ranked North Carolina State and eighth-ranked Arizona State are all in Oregon’s race. There are 252 runners in the race, the same amount as at the NCAA Championship race. “The quality of this meet is close to half of the national meet,” Heinonen said. The LaVem Gibson XC course is a two-loop course, with the women’s race 6,000 meters long. “(The course) seems wide open and fair, not disorienting like the Griak,” Heinonen said. The women have run two meets this season, the Roy Griak Invitational on Sept. 28 and the Willamette Invitational on Oct. 5. The Ducks finished eighth at the Griak and third at Willamette. Heinonen said he thinks the women will run better as a team than they did at the season’s first meet. They have been training together for five weeks, as compared to the two weeks they had before the Griak meet. Most members of the team felt they raced better at the Turn to Cross Country, page 6A
