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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 3, 2004)
Sports Editor: Hank Hager hankhager@dailyemerald.com Monday, May 3,2004 Oregon Daily Emerald SPORTS Best bet MLB: Chicago White Sox vs. Baltimore 4 p.m., ESPN2 Defense delivers in spring game The Oregon offense scored just one touchdown as spring workouts wound down Saturday By Hank Hager Oregon's kickers had a chance to pad the green team's score Saturday at Autzen Stadium during the Ducks' spring game. The Ducks promptly went 4 of 9 from 42 yards out ending Oregon's final workout of the spring. By missing five chances, they — lared Siegel, Luke Bellotti and Paul Mar tinez — gave 14 points to the white team, grateful for that much. Those 12 points promptly upped their total by 28 percent. The white team won, 124-43. "I thought it was a basketball game for a minute," Oregon safety Marley Tucker said. "I thought we did well tonight. We just outplayed the offense all together." Apparently, the Ducks found out that Autzen has never seen a game go to 100 points. As soon as the white team forced the offense to end a possession on downs — courtesy of a Brady Leaf incompletion — the white team spiked to 103 points, al though the scoreboard read "03." At that point on, the defense never looked back. Not like it had to, anyway. "You get points for making plays, and tackles for loss, and we did a lot of that to day," linebacker Jerry Matson said of the defense. "They didn't get a lot of big plays. That's the only way to score. If they don't move the ball down the field in chunks, they don't get a lot of points." The defense effectively kept the offense off-balance all afternoon. The white team combined for 6 1/2 sacks — led by Nate LiaBraaten's 1 1/2. They broke up four passes and intercepted one. The defense forced five fumbles, recov ered two and held the offense's rushing Sports Editor DUCK FOOTBALL otherwise known as Oregon's defense. In turn, they scored 12 points of their own. The of fense (green) was Turn to DEFENSE, page 13 Erik R. Bishoff Photographer Robby Valenzuela (right) and Jerry Matson get to Oregon quarterback Kellen Clemens (with ball) during the team's scrimmage Saturday. The Oregon defense held the offense to one touchdown and got to five Duck quarterbacks for 6 1/2 sacks. UO falls to fourth after 1-2 weekend The Ducks fell to UCLA on Friday, but came back to split the two weekend games with Washington at Howe Field By Mindi Rice Senior Sports Reporter The llth-ranked Ducks didn't have their typical weekend. Coming off the April 25 upset of No. 1 Arizona, Oregon came out flat Friday against No. 3 UCLA, dropping the game; 2-0. After a postgame conference, the team picked itself SOP "I BALL up an^ came out - firing against No. 7 Washington on Saturday. The Ducks (35-14 overall, 9-6 Pacific-10 Conference) mercy-ruled the 1 luskies in a 10-2 five-inning victory. Oregon's offense sputtered again Suit day with a 1 -0 loss to Washington (34-12, 8-5) in eight innings. "We're playing No. 3 and No. 7 in the country," Oregon head coach Kathy Arend sen said Sunday. "We're No. 11. We're the underdog. We're playing the best teams in the country every weekend. If we had won every series every weekend, that would be phenomenal. I'm disappointed we lost, but I don't think it's because the kids didn't work or didn't play or didn't care." The 1-2 weekend dropped Oregon to fourth-place in the conference, behind No. 1 Arizona, No. 9 Stanford and the I luskies. Friday's 2-0 loss to the Bruins, who split two 1-0 games with the Ducks in April in DUCK Turn to FOURTH, page 16 Andrus, Fuqua pace UO women at twilight meet The Oregon women rack up nine event wins in Hayward Field's final meet of the season By Alex Tam Sports Reporter The Oregon women's track and field team is headed down the home stretch toward the most important time of the year. _ But before they could make that final tUm t0 ^ac^c"10 Conference Champi WCfIflEm S onships, the Ducks needed to clear their fi nal hurdle known as the Oregon Twilight _ on Saturday. The meet was the last to be held at Hayward Field this season. The women added nine event wins in front of the crowd of about 4,000, which saw the Oregon seniors compete in their final meet in Eugene. "The women had a good meet," head coach Martin Smith said. "I felt that there were some good individual improvements." Abby Andrus, a redshirt senior from Peoria, Ariz., triumphed in two events and earned season bests in each. Her times of 14.16 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles and 59.90 seconds in the 400 meter hurdles met the Pac-10 standards. In another sprints event win, junior Sofie Abildtrup placed first in the 200-meters with a time of 24.01. The time was nearly .08 seconds off her personal best. Abildtrup also competed in her last . < - _ .Tjjcnto WOMEN, page 14 Holliday shines during season finale David Moore finished fourth and set a new season best by clearing 16-5 1/2 in the pole vault at the Oregon Twilight on Saturday. Lauren Wimer Senior Photographer Oregon finishes its regular season by winning six events during the Oregon Twilight on Saturday By Jon Roetman Sports Reporter Brandon Holliday's performance in the 400-meter hurdles at Saturday's Oregon Twilight was a high mo ment in the relatively low-key regular season finale at Hayward Field. The Beaverton native record ec^ a half-second season best i fc Sli (51.08 seconds) while finishing TRACK more than a second ahead of - the nearest competitor. The time was also tops in the Pacif ic- 10 Conference this season, giving the senior some thing to build on in the two weeks leading up to the league's championships. I lolliday said he just wanted to come out and run a decent race after stmggling through a case of food poi soning during last weekend's Oregon Invitational. "I just wanted to come out and run a good, clean race," Holliday said. "I was hoping to hold things to gether and finish with a respectable time." The rest of the field, however, was relatively unspec tacular. Many athletes were reaching the end of their re spective training cycles and entered the meet fatigued. The Oregon men pulled out six wins, but the Ducks' main focus wasn't results. "1 think we just want to get to the Pac-10 Turn to FINALE, page 14
