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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 2002)
Sports Editor Peter Hockaday peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com Friday, October 25,2002 -Oregon Daily Emerald Sports Best bet NBA preseason: Sacramento at Los Angeles 7:30 p.m., ESPN Young Ducks could shine atOSUrace A squad of mostly freshmen runners heads to the Beaver Classic to run in Avery Park Cross country Mindi Rice Freelance Sports Reporter The women’s cross country team is on the road again. This weekend, eight runners, mostly younger members of the squad, will be visiting Corvallis for the Oregon State Beaver Classic. The mostly freshman squad will run the 4,000-meter women’s race at 10 a.m. Saturday in Corvallis’ Avery Park. “This is the final opportunity for team members to run their way on to the (Pacific-10 Conference Champi onship) team,” head coach Tom Heinonen said. Freshmen Nicole Feest, Eleanor Gordon, Chelsea Manesh, Krissy Sonniksen and Sabrina Turner will all run for a place in the championship race. Also running for a place in the Nov. 2 meet are sopho more Beth Jackson, redshirt sophomore Taylor Bryant and redshirt freshman Haripurkh Khalsa. The race is shorter than what the runners usually run. Most Division-I women’s races, including those the Ducks have run this season, are 6,000 meters long. .“It’ll be a speed workout for Nicole Feest and the others who have a chance to run at the Pac-10,” Heinonen said. Feest has scored for the Ducks in two of her three meets this season, finishing fifth and third in those two races. In last year’s Beaver Classic, there were 52 runners in the women’s race. Willamette University, Chemeketa Community College, Lane Community College, the Uni versity of Portland and the Oregon State club team all en tered squads in the race. Saturday, the women competed at the Pre-National meet at the LaVern Gibson XC Course in Terre Haute, Ind., and finished 18th as a team. Redshirt senior Carrie Zografos led the runners, finishing 53rd overall. Junior Laura Harmon finished second for the Ducks, taking 63rd place in the meet. The women placed eighth at the Sept. 28 Roy Griak In vitational and third at the Oct. 5 Willamette Invitational. The men’s cross country squad has not raced since the Griak meet. The harrier men are again taking this weekend off be fore heading to the Pac-10 Championships Nov. 2 in Pasadena, Calif. The Ducks were ranked fifth in the na tional poll for the fourth straight week and have beaten four teams ranked in the top-10 this season. Mindi Rice is a freelance writer for the Emerald. Ducks hope to burn desert teams Oregon will look for its first Pac-10 win of the season this weekend as Arizona and Arizona State come to town Soccer Jesse Thomas Sports Reporter The desert schools will come to town this weekend, and they will bring their sub-.500 Pac-10 women’s soccer records with them. With the Ducks returning home, the match es against Arizona and Arizona State may be to the home team’s advantage. An advantage is something Oregon could use, as it hasn’t won in the last seven games. “Our players can be confident against Ari zona and Arizona State,” Oregon head coach Bill Steffen said. “Confidence works both ways; we are confident because we have done well against them in the past, but at the same time, that may motivate them more.” The Ducks have split with the Wildcats and Sun Devils in each of the past two vears. In 2000, the Ducks defeated Arizona and lost to Arizona State, and the tables turned last year as Arizona won the match with Oregon and Arizona State took a loss. The Wildcats have never won at Pape Field, and the Sun Devils have only won once, in 2000. Oregon is looking forward to the oppor tunity to be home again after a rough week end in the Bay Area. The Ducks took a 2-0 loss to Gal, and No. 1 Stanford beat Oregon 3-0. “The players will enjoy being home. That is an important thing,” Steffen said. Arizona (5-7-1,0-3-0 Pac-10) has fallen to sev eral high-caliber teams in recent weekends, in cluding Oklahoma, No.7 UCLA and No. 19 USG. Kelly Nelson paces the Wildcats with 10 goals. Other offensive threats include fresh men Lisa Kosena, with four goals and assists, and Maggie MacGool, who has taken seven shots for Arizona. “Arizona is very athletic, and they tend to play with a lot of emotion,” Steffen said. “If we can manage to take them out of the game and control the flow of play, then that will be to our advantage.” The Sun Devils have won one game in Pac 10 play but were recently shut out by UCLA and suffered a double-overtime loss to USG. Arizona State had a seven-game winning streak prior to those losses. Freshmen forward Elizabeth Bogus leads the team with seven goals and 45 shots. In goals, ASU is protected by sophomore Kelly Fitzgerald, who sports a 0.88 goals-against-av erage with 66 saves. Oregon has been off to a rough start, but now it is home again, and things look to be to its advantage. The Ducks will be led by freshman forward Mele French, who paces the team in goals with two and has taken 20 shots. Senior goalkeeper Sarah Peters has a 2.14 GAA and ranks first in the conference in saves at 5.69 per game. “We are going to win a Pac-10 game this weekend,” Steffen said. “If we can stay fo cused and continue to create quality chances, we are going to stick one in, and once we do that, we can build on that.” Contact the sports reporter at iessethomas@dailvemerald.com. Second-chance senior . . Courtesy Stanford Athletic Department Stanford senior Lindsey Yamasaki (9) plays in her last career contest against the Ducks tonight In addition to playing for Stanford volleyball, she plays forthe Miami Sol. Lindsey Yamasaki takes on the Ducks for the final time tonight in Palo Alto Volleyball Hank Hager Sports Reporter Not many people get second chances in life. But Lindsey Yamasaki, a senior outside hitter for the Stanford volleyball team, is getting an op portunity she never thought she’d have. The Oregon City native, once a promising two-sport star, opted after her freshman season with the Cardinal to drop volleyball and focus solely on basketball, a decision that has since paid off in the form of a roster spot with the WNBA’s Miami Sol. But the fifth-year senior decid ed — needing just one term to re ceive her undergraduate degree — to give volleyball one last try. So far this season, Yamasaki is sixth on the team in kills with 79, including a career-high 16 against San Jose State on Sept. 6. “I’m just glad I got a second chance,” Yamasaki said. “I don’t think I had really high expecta tions. I came back to compete and contribute.” Yamasaki has definitely con tributed to the defending nation al champions, a team that’s cur rently ranked sixth in the nation. Coming into the season, not much was expected of Yamasaki, especially considering it had been three years since she played com petitive volleyball. But Yamasaki’s role off the bench has been ex panded lately and led to a start against Washington last week. “I am an integral part of the team,” Yamasaki said. “I’m not just the girl who came back and sits on the bench. “I’m paying to do it. It’s not like I’m coming back just because I can.” Turn to Yamasaki, page 6A Jeremy Forrest Emerald Mele French (29) and the Ducks, still in search of their first F’cic-IO win, host the Arizona schools.
