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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 2004)
Sports Editor: Hank Hager hankhager@dailyemerald.com -Oregon Daily Emerald SPORTS Best bet NCAA Basketball Championship: Georgia Tech vs. Connecticut 6:21 p.m., CBS Monday, April 5, 2004 Oregon ends its Texas stay in grand fashion Women: Junior Sarah Malone achieves a school record in the javelin; Emily Enders earns a new pole vault personal best By Alex Tam Sports Reporter After a disappointing first day of com petition on Thursday, the Oregon women's track and field team returned with a renewed sense of energy. The Ducks set new school and person al bests during the final two days of the 77th annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Re lays in Austin. Redshirt junior Sarah Malone topped her own javelin school record from two years ago by five inches with a final throw of 179 feet, 7 inches. Malone also edged out some elite company that included cur rent American record holder Kim Kreiner and two-time NCAA runner-up and USC senior Inga Stasiulionyte. Malone said afterwards that she was happy to finally defeat her two rivals in her first year back after sitting out last season. "I did really well," she said. "There was good weather and good competition. (Both of) the girls beat me a few times, so it was good to na tive credited a slight headwind to winning her event by a little more than four feet over Stasi ulionyte. "The wind was good," Malone said. "I was hoping for a little bit of a headwind, even though a lot of people don't like it." The Ducks' success did not stop there. Freshman Emily Enders won the B sec tion of the pole vault after surpassing her personal best by 2 1/2 inches at 12-9. Weather became a problem for the com petitors as a small rainstorm caused a 25 minute delay in the action on Friday. All of the field competitors had to deal with a wet and drenched playing surface for the rest of the day. Enders, a Snohomish, Wash., na tive, said growing up in the Pacific North west helped her deal with the rain. "I thought the weather might affect me, but it worked out fine," Enders said. "Be ing from Washington, I guess I was pre pared for it and the delay didn't cause me to get tight at all. This is the biggest meet I've probably competed at, but I wasn't re ally nervous coming in. "I'm just happy that I went up to my Turn to WOMEN, page 10 WOMEN'S TRACK beat them. I j tried to be a cc petitor." The Newberg Geoff Thurner Oregon Media Services Bree Fuqua earned an Oregon record with a throw of 50 -111/2 in the shot put at the Texas Relays. Men: Eric Mitchum seta wind-aided personal best while finishing second in the 110 hurdles Saturday in Texas By Jon Roetman Sports Reporter Sophomore All-American Eric Mitchum's performance in the 110 hurdles capped a successful weekend for the Oregon men's track and field team. The Calumet City, 111., native finished second (13.50) Saturday at the 77th annu al Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin. Mitchum's time fell below the Oregon record of Micah Harris (13.67, 2002) by .17, but Saturday's wind was measured at 3.0 meters per second, a full meter per sec ond more than the allowable limit of 2.0. Florida junior Joshua Walker bettered Mitchum by .03 (13.47) for the win. Mitchum's time was .23 seconds better than his previous windy best (13.73) from the 2003 Pacific-10 Conference Champi onships. The time also met the Pac-10 and regional qualifying marks (14.74/14.33). "I was very happy with my race," Mitchum said. "It was a pretty good start, and I had pretty good frequency between the hurdles, and was snapping down pretty good. I was right on with my steps and MEN'S in control the whole way. When I crossed the line and looked back at the scoreboard, 1 was a little surprised by the time. We've been working pretty hard in practice to be ready for this meet, but we weren't expecting to go that fast. I just tried to run my race and hope for die best." Also on the track, the Duck 4x400 relay team of sophomore Travis Anderson, jun ior Scott Lamb, senior Brandon Holliday and junior Kedar Inico finished with the seventh-best time in Oregon history (3:08.51), which was also good for a 2 1/2 second season best. Despite gracing the Oregon record books, the Ducks finished eighth in the university section as competition was stiff. UCLA won the event with a time of 3:04.25, followed by Texas Tech (second, 3:05.44) and Florida State (third, 3:05.79). Inico made his debut for Oregon Friday after recendy transferring from Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kan. The Queens, N.Y., native brought an im pressive resume to Oregon, including a 2003 national junior college championship in the 400 indoors (47.7) and a second Turn to MEN, page 8 Oregon earns Pac-10 victory Sven Swinnen climbs up Oregon’s all-time lists in the Ducks' win against Arizona State By Clayton Jones Freelance Reporter The Oregon men's tennis team picked up its first Pacific 10 Conference win of the season and first in almost four _ years on Sunday, defeating Arizona State 4-3 in Eugene. The Ducks hadn't tasted a confer ence victory since they beat Arizona —- State during the 2000 season. "We spoke about coming out with energy and spirit and putting everything on the line and we did that today," Oregon head coach Chris Russell said. DUCK TENNIS Turn to VICTORY, page 9 Danielle Hickey Photo Editor Sven Swinnen helped the Ducks to a Pac-10 victory over Arizona State. Dixon, Oregon impress during first day of spring An expectedly rusty Oregon squad opened its 2004 campaign on the practice field Saturday By Hank Hager Sports Editor Dennis Dixon admitted afterwards he was a bit nervous before taking his first snaps with Oregon football. _ He had enrolled at Oregon in the win 1 8 jlT ter' m‘ss*n8 entire 2003 season. Ore caaiua ■■ gon head coach Mike Bellotti, in fart, had FOOTBALL never even seen him throw a football pri - or to the team’s first spring practice on Turn to SPRING, page 10
