Go the distance
The Oregon men’s football team won four of its last five games.
Surprising.
The Oregon men’s basketball team passed its first test via winning its season-opening game over Fresno State, the defending Western Athletic Conference champions.
Expected.
The Oregon men’s cross country team finished 21st in the nation.
Respectable.
But despite the somewhat successful efforts of the Oregon men’s teams, it’s just not their year to shine.
Why?
This is going to be the year of the Duck women. The year when the women’s sports shine true in the finest fashion. The year the women prove they deserve the same respect and fan base that the men’s sports attract.
It’s a revival year. A year when athletes have returned from injuries and regulations that sidelined them last year. Now those athletes have and will become the stars.
Take redshirt sophomore Nicole Garbin for example. She was the star freshman in 2001 and redshirted the 2002 season after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament.
In 2002, the Ducks finished 2-14-2 overall, the worst record in program history. This year, Oregon finished 9-11 overall, the most wins in program history.
Coincidence? No.
Garbin led the Pacific-10 Conference in shots (70), tied redshirt freshman Andrea Valadez for goals (7) and was named to the All-Pacific-10 Conference Second-Team.
Without Garbin, Oregon could have been left with just one conference win, just like 2002. Oregon’s nine wins deserve nine rounds of applause as the largest turnaround in the program’s history.
Then you have the women’s basketball team, another prime example. Redshirt junior Corrie Mizusawa is back after sitting out last season due to NCAA transfer rules. Senior Cathrine Kraayeveld is back in full swing after missing half of last season because of a staph infection in her right knee.
Now Mizusawa and Kraayeveld lead the team in minutes, averaging 38 and 36, respectively. Kraayeveld leads in scoring with 25.5 points per game and Mizusawa is third with seven.
The result? A 2-0 start before Tuesday’s game, including an upset of then-No. 9 ranked LSU and the No. 24 ranking in the Associated Press poll. Oregon hasn’t been ranked at all for the past two seasons.
Last season marked Oregon’s
first absence from the postseason since 1993.
But not this season. This season will be different. This season will mark Oregon’s return to the NCAA tournament for the first time in
two years.
With Kraayeveld and Mizusawa back in full swing, Oregon should advance out of the first round of NCAAs for the first time since 1998.
Tuesday night’s game offered more reassurance of the dominance that the women’s basketball team brings to the table. A 16-point blowout of Gonzaga proves that LSU wasn’t a fluke and that Oregon will win more this season.
Bottom line: It is finally time for the Oregon women to step into the spotlight.
That includes everything from record-breaking performances by the soccer team to early upsets in basketball to adding women’s lacrosse as Oregon’s new sport.
It all proves that this is the revival and rejuvenation of the Oregon women. Track and field and softball remain question marks in future successes.
If women’s basketball can continue the success that women’s soccer started, you will soon see the Oregon women prove their place as the stars of the University.
It’s not the 2001-02 year of football and men’s basketball but the 2003-04 year of the Oregon women.
Contact the sports reporter
at [email protected].
His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.