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