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