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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2003)
Sports brief Mu tola coming back Maria Mutola has moved to South Africa, but she’ll re turn to her former training base in Eugene for the Pre fontaine Classic 800-meter race on May 24. Mutola, the reigning Olympic, World Outdoor and Indoor champion in the event, will face a strong field that includes Regina Jacobs, who just won the 1,500 World Indoor title but ranked first internationally in the 800 as recently as two years ago. The Prefontaine field also includes Jearl Miles Clark, the American recordholder in the 800. Miles Clark holds the three best American times ever in the event. Mutola won the last Pre ‘Classic 800, in 2001, by almost a second over fellow Mozambique native Tina Paulino. —Peter Hockaday Senior duo leads club water polo Kirsti Neidig and Jordan Sceffler lead the Ducks, who barely missed the national tournament this season jon Roetman Freelance Sports Reporter Kirsti Neidig and Jordan Scheffler started as rivals in high school. They would see each other at wa ter polo camps and tournaments, but their relationship went no deep er than a “Hey, how’s it going?” Little did they know, they would end up leading the Oregon Club Women’s Water Polo team to several successful seasons after traveling similar paths. Both Duck seniors attended Ore gon high schools and received schol arships to attend Division I schools in California. Neidig attended Shel don High School and received an ac ademic scholarship to Galifomia San Diego, while Scheffler attended Ashland High School and received a water polo scholarship to Long Beach State. Both seemed to be heading in their desired directions, when after one year, each decided it was time to move on. Both athletes transferred to Ore gon for their sophomore years to fo cus on academics, though Scheffler’s path was anything but direct. After realizing LBSU wasn’t for her, Schef fler decided to play water polo at Michigan. The decision held for less than a week, though, as future plans to attend dental school made aca demics a priority. “It was crazy,” Scheffler said. “I was literally there for three days.” Since no Oregon schools feature Division I water polo, the pair found club water polo as a fix for their com petitive urges. “It allows me to be aggressive,” Neidig said of water polo. “It’s really physically demanding and every day you come out dead tired.” After joining the team during their sophomore seasons, the two didn’t wait long to contribute, help ing the Ducks to a second place fin ish at regionals and a fourth place finish at their national tournament. A year later, the pair had developed quite the friendship and led the Ducks to a regional tournament championship, a 10th place finish at nationals. “We have a strong bond between the two of us,” Scheffler said. “We’re always there for each other.” This year, the Ducks were disap pointed with how their season end ed. After winning their seeding tour nament in Corvallis, the Ducks finished third in the Northwest re gional tournament, losing to rival Washington in the semi-finals. This year, only teams that won their re spective regions qualified for the na tional tournament. “We were the best team in the regional tournament,” Oregon head coach Jeff Lee said. “We just didn’t bring our ‘A’ game when we needed to.” Lee said it was especially disap pointing because he feels Neidig and Scheffler were the best players in the region at the two-meter of fensive position and fellow senior Amanda Studdard was the best goalie in the region. Despite not making the tourna ment, there have been many posi tives to come out of the Ducks’ sea son. The friendship between Neidig and Scheffler spread throughout the entire team. “This is by far the best team I’ve ever played with,” Scheffler said. “We’re like a big group of sisters.” The Ducks expect a strong nucle us of returning players next season, led by sophomore Samantha Bund. If returning players can pick up on the competitive nature left by Neidig and Scheffler, next year’s Duck team will be just fine. “During practice I would have (Neidig and Scheffler) play on oppo site teams so they could compete against each other,” Lee said. “In games, they knew where the other one was without having to look.” Jon Roetman is a freelance writer for the Emerald. Lightning strike Devils, take first game of series Tom Gulitti The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) (KRT) TAMPA, Fla. — The Devils came all the way back from three goals down. And they did it without their captain, too. But they couldn’t finish the job on Monday night at the St. Pete Times Forum. Former Devil Dave Andreychuk, the savvy 39-year-old captain of the Lightning, was the hero, scor ing the go-ahead goal 6:08 into the third period to lift Tampa Bay to a 4-3 victory in Game 3 of the East ern Conference semifinal series. So the Lightning have made it a series now, with the Devils leading two games to one in the best-of seven set. Game 4 is Wednesday night in Tampa. But the Devils could have delivered a crushing blow and taken command if they had found a way to pull out a vic tory on Monday. Devils’ defenseman Scott Stevens played only 1:17 before he was struck in the left ear with a slap shot by Tampa Bay’s Pavel Ku bina. After having the cut on his ear stitched up, Stevens was taken to the hospital for precautionary X-rays and did not return. Results of the X-rays were not immediate ly known. With Stevens out, the Lightning delighted their boisterous crowd of With (Devils' defenseman Scott) Stevens out, the Lightning delighted their boisterous crowd of 19,854 by jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first period. 19,854 by jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first period. But the Devils rallied to tie it in the second on goals from John Madden, Grant Marshall and Jeff Friesen. That set the stage for Andreychuk. Lightning enforcer Andre Roy had kept a Oleg Tverdovsky clearing at tempt in the New Jersey zone at the left point and gave it to Andreychuk, who pushed it ahead to Ben Glymer in the circle. Andreychuk headed to the slot and took the return pass be fore beating Devils’ goalie Martin Brodeur low to the stick side for his third goal of the playoffs. Only seconds before at the other end, Madden had hit the right post with a slap shot from the high slot. The Devils lost their captain and their composure in the first period, putting themselves in a big hole. Stevens turned his head at the last second before Kubina’s slap shot from the red line hit him, so he was hit in the ear instead of the face. He dropped immediately to the ice in the right circle, sliding into the cor ner with face in his hands as he left a trail of blood behind. Devils’ medical trainer Bill Mur ray raced off the bench. Stevens was up within a minute and was quickly helped to the locker room for stitches, but the sight of him going down and leaving appeared to have an unsettling effect on the his teammates. The Lightning led, 2-0, before the Devils registered a shot on goal. © 2003, The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. Track continued from page 9 marks near 158 feet. Julia Demarni of Arizona leads the way at 159-9. In other field rankings, senior Mary Etter has earned the third position in the discus while senior Amanda Brown holds down fourth in the triple jump. In the pole vault category, redshirt senior Becky Holliday and (Niki) McEwen rank first and third, respectively. Oregon does represent with athletes on the oval, including senior Eri Mac donald, who stands at third in the 800 meters. Redshirt junior Abby Andrus holds the fourth position in the 400 hur dles at 59.9 seconds. Trojans stand strong In the third edition of the Pac-10 2003 Athlete of the Week awards, USG’s Julianna Tudja won the honor for the third-straight . week in the women’s field category. The senior from Veszprem, Hungary, is the only woman thus far to win the award, all for her remarkable accom plishments in the hammer. Tudja recently threw 218-5 inches at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays, which shatters the previous conference best mark, held by UCLA’s Christina Tol son. It is the second-farthest mark in the nation this year. Contact the sports reporter atjessethomas@dailyemerald.com. Mark McCambridge Emerald Elisa Crumley currently sits second on the Pac-10 list in the javelin. Hager continued from page 9 and that’s believable, given that she is from Puerto Rico. But her loss leaves the Ducks with just five returning players next season. Six have left since last year. The Ducks have lost more players than they have retained. Nobody has really said why they left, so pinpointing the problem is a hard thing to do. It could have been with the players themselves, the coaching or the fact that Oregon has n’t had a winning season since 1990. I don’t think it matters who’s on the bench or on the McArthur Court floor. If you haven’t been able to ex ceed your loss column with wins, then it’s really hard to cultivate a winning attitude. That’s especially true when the Pac-10 is annually the best collegiate volleyball conference in the country and some teams, like Stanford and Arizona, could sleep walk their trip through Eugene. The volleyball program at Lane Community College is in danger of being cut because of budget prob lems. Duck volleyball doesn’t de serve the same fate right now, but if seasons like the last decade or so keep on occurring, then it might be the time to discuss some changes. And if a change for the better is de sired, than the deletion of the volley ball team may be the best way to go. Contact the sports reporter at hankhager@dailyemerald.com. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald. Golf continued from page 9 10-over-par, good enough to be tied for 36th with Washington State’s Dustin White. Junior Jimmy White, competing as an individual, shot a 16-over-par round, which landed him 52nd overall. Host and No. 11 UCLA, playing on its very own golf course, current ly holds a firm lead over the field af ter shooting a 6-over 726, seven strokes ahead of Stanford. No. 20 Washington is third with a 17-over 737, followed by No. 6 Arizona and No. 16 Arizona State to round out the top five. If Oregon hopes to crack the top five, which the team did in last year’s event, it would have to out-shoot its nearest com petitor No. 16 Arizona State by 11 strokes just to tie. However, in-state Oregon rival Oregon State isn’t far behind the Ducks, as the Beavers shot a 36-over-par 756 to finish only two strokes behind the Ducks. Oregon State’s Cameraon MacKenzie is currently the field leader after his 4-under-par edged out second place leader Jim Seki of Stanford by one stroke. Alejandro Ganizares of Arizona State, Brock Mackenzie of Washington and Roy Moon of UCLA are all currently tied for third overall at 1-under-par. The third round of the Pac-10 Tournament is set for 8:15 a.m. today. Scott Archer is a freelance writer for the Emerald.