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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 2002)
Conference harriers ready for Pac-lOs The Rac-10 cross country teams will meet in California on Saturday for the conference title Cross Country Notes Mindi Rice Freelance Sports Reporter Cross country is a sport that does not heavily depend on conference standings, unlike most other inter collegiate sports. Instead, cross country relies on a team’s finish in the regional cham pionship meet and which teams have placed ahead of others in pre vious contests. To add another race in which teams have an opportunity to place ahead of possible automati cally qualifying teams, conferences hold their own championships each season. Saturday, nine women’s squads and eight men’s squads — Oregon State and USG do not field men’s squads, while Oregon State also does not have a women’s team — will travel to Pasadena, Calif., to race against their Pacific-10 Conference rivals and attempt to oust Stanford as the perennial Pac 10 leader. Here is a run-down of those teams. Arizona The Arizona men finished second in the Arizona State Invitational, while the women finished fourth. Both teams placed ahead of ranked opponents in the Oct. 11 meet. Many of Arizona’s runners this sea son are young and need experience to have a shot for the Pac-10 title. Arizona State Host of last year’s Pac-10 Champi onship meet, the Sun Devil squads are both nationally-ranked, with the men’s squad 25th and the women’s squad 17th. The men’s squad finished 20th at the NCAA Championship meet last year, while the women fin ished 23rd in the same meet. California The Golden Bears squads strug gled last year, with both teams fin ishing last in the Pac-10 Champi onship meet. This year, both the men’s and women’s teams return several veteran runners, and also pick up a talented crop of freshmen. Stanford The Stanford women’s squad has won the Pac-10 Championship meet for the past six years, while the men have taken home the title in five of the past six seasons. The men’s squad is ranked first in the nation, and the women are ranked second. UCLA The Bruins’ men’s squad finished sixth in the Pac-10 Championship meet last year, while the women finish fourth and went to the NCAA Champi onship meet. Last year the women had a young squad, and this year they re turn experience and talent. They are ranked 19th in the nation. use Following last year’s seventh-place finish at the Pac-10 Championships, the USC women have placed fourth, fifth and sixth at their regular-season meets this year. The team is led by junior Brooke Thomas and senior Danielle Morrell. Washington Both Husky squads placed fifth in the Pac-10 meet last year, and have shown strong improvement this season. The men finished 13th at the Pre-National meet, while the women finished 11th. Both teams are led by upperclassmen, with a strong contingent of young runners behind them. Washington State The Cougars have a new coach this season, and have been running strong in their meets. The women finished sixth and the men seventh in last year’s Pac-10 Champi onships, while each squad had one individual qualify for the NCAA Championship meet. Mindi Rice is a freelance writer or the Emerald. Soccer continued from page 11 The referee declared it as “all ball” with no foul, and Thayer end ed up injuring the Wildcat player for the rest of the game. Thayer looked to the injury as uplifting for Oregon, and said it helped to lead the Ducks to their first Pac-10 win. “I love hitting people; I just love the rush of it,” Thayer said. “Just someone dribbling the ball and be ing able to smack them and then look at them on the ground.” For Mintz, the aggressiveness and contact in Pacific-10 Conference soccer is not the worst she has ex perienced. Mintz played the 2001 season at Connecticut before being transferred to Oregon this season. “The East Coast is definitely a more physical game and the play is much faster,” Mintz said. “East Coast is geared a lot more around weights and strength and power, versus speed on the West Coast.” Oregon is an aggressive team and takes a strong physical approach to soccer, but the Ducks are small in size. The Ducks have three players listed at 5-feet-10, including Thay er, and 12 players under 5-feet-5. “Both Robi and Christine are very smart, and understand the physicality of their game and their roles within the game,” Steffen said. “Are they physical? Yes. And that’s to be admired because they under stand that there are physical chal lenges to the game and they accept those challenges and they have done pretty well with them.” Oregon faces UCLA and USC in back-to-back matchups this week end, and physical prowess and ag gressiveness will be key for the '7 love hitting people; I just love the rush of it Just someone dribbling the ball and being able to smack them and then look at them on the ground." Robi Thayer Oregon defender Ducks as the two California teams rank high with strong records. Fans, fans and more fans To all the fans who have support ed the Oregon women’s soccer team through thick and thin, you have another reason to be proud. Prior to the weekend, Pape Field had sported the second-highest home attendance average in the league. After six games and 4,667 total people, the Ducks were averag ing 778 people per game . With the undesirable weather conditions against Arizona and Ari zona State, the average dropped to 671 per game. With a total of 5,366 people for eight games, that places Oregon fourth in the Pac-10 . The Washington Huskies lead the league with an average of 1,256 peo ple per game followed by Stanford at 829 and UCLA is third with 740 to edge Oregon in attendance. “It says something about women’s soccer, especially with how this year we haven’t had a great year but we still have tons of support from the community and that they are be hind us every single game whether we win or lose,” Thayer said. “To look up there and have all these fans, especially against North Caroli na, is just amazing.” Oregon went head-to-head with top-ranked North Carolina on Sept. 29 at Pape Field, and although they took a 3-0 loss, 1,588 fans came out to support the Ducks and broke the previous attendance record. “It definitely is a motivation for us, because while we may get down on ourselves it helps to know that fans still come out to see us play no matter what our record is,” Mintz said. Oregon fans will have one more opportunity in conference play to come out and support the Ducks. Oregon’s final home game is Nov. 8 in the home rivalry at Pape Field with Oregon State. Contact the sports reporter atjessethomas@daiIyemerald.com. 2002-03 Oregon Men's Basketball YOUR STUDENT GOVERNMENT Get Involved! 346-3724 Student Ticket Release Dates Students enrolled for Fall 2002 classes can pick up one ticket for each game at the ticket offices located in the EMU or at the Len Casanova Center. Student tickets are funded by the ADFC through student incidental fees. In most cases, tickets are distributed two games at at time. For men's basketball, a total of2,039 tickets per game are available for UO students. Students must have a current UO student photo ID card to pick up tickets. Opponents (Game Dates)* Exh. - Basketball Travelers/EA Sports All Stars (Nov. 6/14) John Thompson Classic (Nov. 24-25) Pacific/Portland(Nov. 30/Dec. 4) Oregon State (Jan. 18) Florida A&M/Minnesota (Dec. 20/22) UC-Riverside, Arizona/Arizona State (Dec. 28, Jan. 2/4) Washington/Washington State (Jan. 23/25) Stanford/California (Feb. 6/8) USC/UCLA (Feb. 27/Mar. 1) *Pac-10 Conference games and dates in BOLD. Release Dates Monday, November 4 Tuesday, November 12 Monday, November 18 Friday, December 6 Monday, December 9 Monday, December 16 Monday, January 13 Monday, January 27 Monday, February 17 For more information, contact the Duck Ticket Office at (541) 346-4461 or the ASUQ at (541) 346-3724.
