The Oregon volleyball team is grabbing people’s attention with its 11-1 start.
This weekend the Ducks can make an impression on the Pacific-10 Conference with a home match against No. 8 Washington Friday night.
Oregon, currently No. 24 in the CSTV/AVCA Top 25 Coaches poll, pulled off an upset of then-No. 20 Ohio State in its last match in the Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge. The win salvaged the weekend for Oregon, which lost its first match and game of the season the night before to Purdue.
The Ducks completed non-conference play with an 11-1 record, a win over a ranked team and had each of its 11 wins come in three games.
Oregon’s loss to Purdue ended a 10-match winning streak. The loss came against a Purdue team that was a Sweet 16 team last season.
Gorana Maricic and Sonja Newcombe each contributed 18 kills. Newcombe also led Oregon with a .386 hitting percentage. The standout sophomore also had a season-high six total blocks and nine digs.
Setter Nevena Djordjevic had 29 assists, while libero Katie Swoboda had a season and match-high 32 digs.
As a team, Oregon hit just .171, a season low.
“We didn’t play well (Friday),” head coach Jim Moore said in a media release. “We have to work harder against teams that are as talented as Purdue. We learned that lesson today and it was one that we needed to learn.”
Oregon regained its winning form the next night with a 3-0 win against Ohio State and now prepares for Washington today and Washington State on Saturday.
Soccer
The soccer team left Utah with a split last weekend.
Danielle Sweeney left her impact on all aspects of Oregon’s 2-1 win at Utah State’s Bell Field. Darcie Gardner punched in her first career goal off a corner kick from Sweeney.
Sweeney relied on prowess and a knowledge of the rules on the second goal when, after missing a penalty kick, she allowed the deflected ball to bypass her and go to the waiting Kirstie Kuhns. Kuhns kicked in the game-winner in the 63rd minute.
By rule, the player who takes the penalty kick can’t be the first player to touch the ball after a missed attempt, so by hurdling the ball, Sweeney gave Oregon (4-2-0) another quality shot for the go-ahead goal.
“That was a really intelligent play by Sweeney,” Oregon coach Tara Erickson said in a media release. “Your natural reaction in that situation is to shoot the ball, but Sweeney knew the rule and knew (Kuhns) was right behind her and Kirstie stayed composed put it in the open side of the net.”
Sweeney earned an assist on both plays and has three this season – six in her Oregon career. The win helped erase memories of Oregon’s 1-0 loss to Montana, but proved a temporary reprieve, when the Ducks lost two days later to Utah, 2-0, without injured Dylann Tharp, out with a fractured left ankle.
Oregon was out-shot 14-11 and its defense allowed more than one goal for the first time since October 2006.
“I think we did a poor job in our attack (Sunday) and it showed in how we allowed Utah to possess the ball,” said Erickson. “It was not our best day, but hopefully that will motivate us to practice a little better and have our attacking players step up.”
Utah’s Kiley Jones had the first goal in the 22nd minute off a deflection and Erin Dalley had the second in the 59th minute.