Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
Tuesday, April 22,2003
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports
Best bet
NHL Playoffs:
Minnesota at Colorado, Game 7
7 p.m., ESPN2
Oregon tries to clinch winning season
The Ducks host their last non
conference games of the season
with a doubleheader against
Nevada today at Howe Field
Softball
Mindi Rice
Sports Reporter
Oregon can clinch its first winning
season since 2000 with a win in either
game of today’s 3 p.m. doubleheader
against Nevada.
If the No. 20 Ducks earn the winning
season, head coach Kathy Arendsen will
be only the second Duck coach since at
least 1986 to lead Oregon to a winning
record in her first season.
Arendsen is confident that her Ducks
can help themselves earn that winning
season.
“Our magic number sits at one,”
Arendsen said. “We want to clinch our
winning record tomorrow in the first
game, and start working toward really
giving the committee no choice but to in
volve us in the postseason when we start
winning that second game.”
Nevada has welcomed back its softball
program to Reno after a 13-year hiatus.
The Wolfpack is 20-27 this season in the
Western Athletic Conference.
“Reno’s a good ballclub,” Arendsen
said. “They’re going to come out here
and they’re going to battle.
“They’ve got everything to gain.
They’re kind of like we are in some of the
(Pacific-10 Conference) games — every
thing to gain and nothing to lose because
they’re not expected to win, but those are
the most dangerous teams. Just like
Turn to Softball, page 13
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Adam Amato Emerald
Amber Hutchison (11) and the Ducks take a break from Pac-10 play to face Nevada in a doubleheader today. One win will ensure a 500 season for the Ducks.
Zografos runs back to track
me cross country star will race on Saturday for the first
time since fall term, making her debut in the 5,000
Women’s track notes
Jesse Thomas
Sports Reporter
Carrie Zografos runs one of the wettest, wildest and hard
est races on the track.
Not only does the redshirt senior run seven and a half laps
around, but she has to clear four barriers set at 33 inches
high during every lap. And the most interesting part of the
steeplechase is the water pit athletes jump into on the end of
the back stretch.
“The water pit is pretty hard and a pretty brutal impact on
your body,” Zografos said. “It’s a different kind of endurance
and being controlled. It’s hard.”
The Portland native owns Oregon’s best-ever time in the
3,000-meter steeplechase at 10 minutes and 42 seconds,
which she set in 2002.
Zografos is finally getting to the injury-free point after an
overuse hip injury, which hasn’t allowed her to race outdoors
this season. The cross country star will race for the first time
on Saturday at the Oregon Invitational in the 5,000 meters.
“My endurance training has been OK and I’m just going to
try and salvage the season,” Zografos said.
It will be the first race for Zografos since the NCAA Cross
Country Championships in the fall, where she finished 33rd
in 20:32.
Zografos emerged as the team’s fastest runner in her final
season and fellow teammate Magdalena Sandoval thinks she
is underestimating herself for this weekend.
“She will surprise herself and her training has been more
adequate than she probably gives herself credit for,” San
doval said. “She’s driven, she wants to race, she wants to do
really well and that’s what she expects from herself.”
Zografos’ distance-running days began in her sophomore
year at Colorado, her first college. The Central Catholic
graduate was a sprinter in her younger days, but in
college, transitioned to longer distances.
Turn to Track, page 12
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Carrie Zografos had success in cross country, and shell try to translate
that success to the track for the first time this season on Saturday.
Men’s volleyball
learns from UO’s
ex-varsity women
The men’s Club Vblleyball team found success when
Lindsay Closs and Sydney Chute started roaming the
sidelines after both players left the UO women’s squad
Club Sports Tuesday
I
J
Jon Roetman
Sports Freelancer
A year after finishing 52nd at its national tournament, the
men’s Oregon Club Volleyball Team started taking advice from
coaches who know a thing or two about the sport.
Smart thinking.
Behind the tutelage of ex-Oregon volleyball players Lindsay
Closs and Sydney Chute, the Ducks improved to a 25th place
finish at this year’s National Intramural-Recreational Sports As
sociation Tournament.
“We improved 180 degrees,” junior club Coordinator Levi
McClain said. “We came together as a team and started to trust
each other on the court.”
McClain said having coaches like Closs and Chute, who have
competed at the varsity level, share their knowledge with the
team improved the Ducks immensely.
“We really value their insight to competitive college vol
leyball,” McClain said. “Their experience boosted overall
team morale.”
Closs said coaching the men, rather than playing, had its ad
vantages and its challenges.
“You get to have fun when you travel instead of resting,”
Closs said. “You’re giving information instead of receiving it, but
it’s hard being a girl coaching guys.”
One challenge Closs faced was the difference between men’s
and women’s volleyball. The main difference is the pace of the
Turn to Volleyball, page 12