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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 2004)
“I forgot who started. ” New York Yankee Derek Jeter after Game 5 of the ALCS where the Red Sox and Yankees combined to use 14 pitchers Practice old style with new Volleyball coach Carl Ferreira keeps practice innovative by joining his players on the court BY STEPHEN MILLER SPORTS REPORTER Practice is not just rehearsing plays or run ning laps. Practice is not just dressing down and breaking a sweat. It serves the purpose of building experience, and the Oregon volleyball coaching staff knows how vital it is to its program. Head coach Carl Ferreira tries to implement a variety of activities to make each session seem less repetitive. However, there are always con stants in each meeting. Before each practice, the team lines up shoulder-to-shoulder along the sideline and breaks in unison with a clap. The same ritual is repeated at the end of practice. A brief warm-up, consisting of practice serves or a bump, set and spike drill between partners preludes the main workout. Once heart rates have increased, the drills begin. At times, Ferreira has become more involved in the drills or workouts than an outsider would expect. Such was the case Wednesday. For the team’s final practice before a homestand against No. 12 UCLA and No. 6 USC, Ferreira jumped into the rotation and played several games among his pupils. “He did it a lot last year,” middle blocker Kris ten Bitter said after practice. “I think it just de pends on the personnel we’ve got on a given day. We’re the same hitters, so we get used to each other, and I think that can get us into a little bit of a rut.” Senior libero Katie O’Neil agrees that this is a fairly common occurrence when the team is cop ing with injuries or illness. She said that it pro vides the team with a new perspective when Fer reira participates. “It’s fun when he comes in because he’s got this charge about him,” O’Neil said. “He’s been a hitter his whole life so he comes in and throws in the shots that he knows the girls are going to be playing.” Ferreira believes that there are upsides and downsides to crossing over the player-coach boundary, but under the circumstances, he feels that it is appropriate and effective. “It’s amazing what five feet on the court means compared to being five feet off the court,” Ferreira said, “and when you’re on the court with Oregon head coach Carl Ferreira elevates for a block attempt against freshman Justine Petry during a practice drill on Wednesday at McArthur Court. them, between the sidelines, you get a whole different feeling - as a teammate. Even as a coach on the sidelines, you don’t get that. It’s fun to have the opportunity...to be embraced for a brief moment as part of the internal team. “I don’t like to do it myself because when you play, it takes a little bit away from coaching, but we were down a few players at the outside hitting position so that is all I was doing; I was substitut ing for the position,” he said. The Ducks give less respect to their coach when he is inside the lines. If he is guilty of a miss-hit, or positions himself wrong, then he hears about it from players on both sides of the net. “It’s kind of fun to have them hold me ac countable to the things that we hold them ac countable to,” Ferreira said, “and then when you’re not doing what you ask of them, they let PRACTICE, page 14 ■ Women's soccer Women's soccer seeks first Pac-10 win Erik R. Bishoff | Photographer Oregon forward Mele French will sit out Friday's game against Washington State due to a red card last week. Oregon has never won more than three games in Pac-10 play, and so far this is not shaping up to be the turn-around season BY BRIAN SMITH SPORTS REPORTER Three weeks in, and the women’s soccer Pacif ic-10 Conference season has produced an unlike ly first-place team, five nationally ranked clubs and a sorting out of the contenders and pre tenders in the conference. Top forward to sit out against WSU Oregon came into the season with expectations of exceeding its school-record number of Pac-10 wins, set last year at three. A number of key in juries, including the loss of Oregon’s biggest of fensive weapon, junior Nicole Garbin, during the spring, have hurt the Ducks. The Ducks have been held scoreless in their first three conference matches and rank ninth in shots (140) and last in the Pac-10 in goals (10). The Ducks’ anemic offense took another hit last Friday when junior forward Mele French was issued a red card against Oregon State. French leads the team in points (5), is tied for the team lead in goals (2) and is third on the team in shots (17). She will sit out Friday against Washington State, leaving scoring duties to freshman Kami Kapaku and sophomore Andrea Valadez, who have two and one goals, respectively. Hultin wins second Pac-10 honor Washington State’s junior goalkeeper Katie Hultin was named Pac-10 women’s soccer Player of the Week for Oct. 12-18. Hultin also received the honor earlier this year, for Sept. 14-20, making her the only Cougar soccer player to earn the award twice in the same season. The native of Denver, Colo., recorded her fifth and sixth shutout of the season in the Cougar’s upsets last week against No. 8 UCLA and No. 22 USC. Hultin recorded 14 saves in both victories — including nine in the 1-0 defeat over the Bruins. The victories marked the first time the Cougars have defeated both USC and UCLA in the same season. Hultin has allowed 13 goals in 13 games this season, giving her a 1.00 goals against average. Her six shutouts this year ties her for fourth on the Cougars single-season list. SOCCER, page 14 Yankees choke, Red Sox win series Boston comes back from a 0-3 deficit in a seven-game series for the first time in MLB history BY RONALD BLUM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK — Boston blew away decades of defeat with four sweet swings. Believe it, New England, the Red Sox are in the World Series. And they got there with the most unbelievable comeback of all, shaming the New York Yankees, the evil em pire to the south. David Ortiz, Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe made sure of that. Just three outs from getting swept out of the AL championship series three nights earlier, the Red Sox finally humbled the dreaded Yan kees, winning Game 7 in a 10-3 shocker Wednesday night to become the first major league team to overcome a 3-0 postseason se ries deficit. Cursed for 86 years, these Red Sox just might be charmed. There is no torture this time, no hour of hu miliation. Better yet, to Boston fans, it’s the Yankees turn to suffer the memory of a his toric collapse. Boston didn't need any of the late-inning dramatics that marked the last three games, leading 6-0 after two innings. Ortiz, the series MVP, started it with a two run homer in the first off broken-down Kevin Brown, and Damon quieted Yankee Stadium in the second inning with a grand slam on Javier Vazquez’s first pitch. After Derek Jeter sparked hope of a come back with a run-scoring single in the third, Da mon put a two-run homer into the upper deck for an 8-1 lead in the fourth. Lowe, pitching on just two days' rest, si lenced the Yankees’ bats and their boasting fans, who just last weekend assumed New York’s seventh pennant in nine years was all but a lock. He allowed one hit in six innings then Pedro Martinez started the seventh, his first relief appearance in five years, sparking chants of “Who’s your daddy?” Three hits and two runs got the crowd go ing, but the rally stopped there, and Mark Bellhorn added a solo homer in the eighth for a 9-3 Boston lead. Cheering of Red Sox fans could be heard in the ninth, and when pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra grounded to second baseman Pokey Reese for the final out, Boston players ran on the field and jumped together in a mass huddle to the first-base side of the mound. Yankees players slowly walked off, elimi nated on their home field for the second straight season. On a cool, crisp night in the Bronx, the his torical pattern was broken, and the World Se ries will start at Fenway Park on Saturday night against St. Louis or Houston. Now that the Babe’s team has been beaten, Boston can try to reverse The Curse, win the Series for the first time since 1918 and bring happiness to the Hub which can scarcely be lieve the tumultuous turn of events. From Fenway Park to Faneuil Hall, from Boston Common to Beacon Hill, the 11th pen nant for the Red Sox, the first since 1986, will perhaps be remembered as the sweetest. Just because they won it over New York, in Yankee Stadium, site of the Game 7 meltdown when the Red Sox were five outs from win ning last year. RED SOX page 14