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.