With five of the remaining nine games Oregon plays being on the road, the No. 7 Ducks (18-4 overall, 6-3 Pacific-10 Conference) look to patch up their traveling record. Up to this point in the season, the team is 1-3 in Pac-10 games when playing away from the friendly confines of McArthur Court – where they are 5-0 in conference.
“We need to get some key wins on the road,” senior Katie Swoboda said.
That need will be tested this weekend when the Ducks travel to Los Angeles to play No. 12 USC (11-7, 4-5) tonight and No. 9 UCLA (14-6, 4-5) on Saturday. In order to keep pace with Cal, Stanford and Washington, Oregon will need a good showing. With a loss to either team or both, Oregon could drop into a three-way tie with USC and UCLA. That would muddy the waters in an already close Pac-10 race.
With the Halloween night matchup with the Trojans, the Ducks are looking to do something only three teams have been able to do at the Galen Center: win. USC is 33-3 at home in their new facility, and before No. 6 Washington beat them Oct. 11, the Trojans had a 32-game winning streak.
When USC played in Eugene on Oct. 4, the Ducks swept the Trojans, who were still reeling from the previous night’s five-set loss to Oregon State. USC hit an abysmal .088, compared to Oregon’s .452 percentage. About the only one to have any success against the Ducks was freshman Alex Jupiter, who logged a match-high 12 kills.
For the Ducks, senior Gorana Maricic and sophomore Heather Meyers shared the team lead with 11 kills each, and Oregon had 10 blocks. They will need another balanced performance from Maricic and Meyers coupled with strong outings from players like junior Neticia Enesi and senior Kristen Forristall to overcome USC’s advantage of playing at home.
Plus, the Trojans are coming off an emotional five-set win over No. 4 Cal last weekend, and the Trojans hope that win will be the spark to turn around their season.
“It’s going to be another tough two games,” Oregon head coach Jim Moore said last weekend. “Both teams are always good, and we will just have to keep playing our game.”
And in the world of Pac-10 volleyball, a match against one ranked opponent is usually followed by another. UCLA is in need of a good weekend after last week’s tough losses to California and Stanford. The Bruins took the Golden Bears to five sets, but fell 15-13 in the deciding set.
The first game of the Bruins-Ducks series in Eugene on Oct. 3 was a good one for the Ducks. After the previous weekend’s losses to Stanford and Cal to start conference play, Oregon was in desperate need of a win to legitimize its ranking in the top half of the country. Oregon came out in the first set with emotion and intensity, and pulled out a close 25-22 win. That was followed by 25-23 victory by UCLA, but Jim Moore’s team rallied to win the last two sets in what junior Sonja Newcombe called a “defining win.”
“I just wanted to prove to everyone that we could compete and win at this level,” she said.
It will be tough to repeat that performance on the road, with the Bruins playing in historic Pauley Pavilion. A hostile environment and a long flight will not help the Ducks.
But with all the other stereotypes the Ducks have shattered this year, why not another few? Their road record in the Pac-10 has never been stellar, but it’s been downright abysmal against UCLA. The Ducks are a combined 0-25 in Westwood. That statistic shows why the higher-ranked Ducks go into this weekend as an underdog. This season presents the best opportunity for a win on the road against the Bruins, but until Oregon creates a habit of winning against the likes of Stanford and UCLA, the Ducks will always be in the bigger programs’ shadows.
Coach Moore buys into that. He’s constantly telling his team the rankings don’t mean anything, and not to concentrate on what anyone else is doing. He preaches hard work and a constant effort of improving.
“We just need to keep winning,” he said. “We need to improve our defense and not allow teams to hit over .250 on us like Utah did.”
Both contests start at 7 p.m., and for complete coverage log on to the Emerald’s sports blog Press Pass after the matches are over.