Oregon will continue to grind its way through one of the toughest schedules in the country on Friday when Wyoming comes to Papé Field.
It will be the first home match in a month for the Ducks. The team’s 2004 complete schedule includes nine NCAA tournament participants from 2003. The Ducks have already played and lost to national runner-up Connecticut, 2002 national champion Portland, Central Connecticut State and Utah.
“We want to develop our players by having a tough schedule,” Oregon head coach Bill Steffan said. “We have had chances. We had chances against UConn, and we had a chance to get it to 3-3 against Portland, but the goal was called back due to an offsides call.”
Oregon still has to face five more postseason qualifiers — Washington, USC, Stanford, Arizona State, and last year’s final four qualifier UCLA — during its upcoming conference schedule.
Injury update
Slowly but surely, the Ducks are returning to full strength. A plethora of spring injuries forced Oregon to cancel the rest of its spring season and has left them short-handed for the early part of 2004. All but three of the Ducks have returned — including senior defender Kelly Baird, sophomore Kaily Winther, redshirt sophomore Sabrina DeMonte, junior Katie Abrahamson, junior Mele French and redshirt sophomore Andrea Valadez.
“It hasn’t given us a consistent lineup for spring or fall,” Steffan said. “Without those people, we’re not at max, but you can’t predict injuries.”
Redshirt junior Nicole Garbin — one of Oregon’s biggest offensive threats — continues to recover from her spring knee injury, in addition to Elise Minvielle and Caitlin Gamble.
“We don’t know if we’ll have Nicole in the fall because of a spring knee injury, so we have to assume the worst, which is very disappointing,” Steffan said. “There’s a slight chance she might be back by Pac-10, but we’ll have to make that decision during the season.”
Oh, those freshmen
The impact of the freshman
class on the team is already
being felt. Forward Kami Kapaku
is second on the team in shots (16), shots on goal (9), and is tied
for third in goals (1). Kapaku
has started all eight games and is third in minutes played (576). Fellow freshman Jen Cameron is fifth on the team in shots (8) and shots on goal (4). Cameron also scored the Ducks’ first point of the season with her assist to French in their game against Weber State on Fri., Sept. 3.
Starts, starts
and more starts
Senior defender Christine Mintz has upped her consecutive starts streak to 46 matches, the longest streak in team history. Mintz started her streak back in 2002. Junior midfielder Cristan Higa has nearly equaled her teammate by starting in 45 of the last 46 matches.
In the classroom
and on the field
After the 2003 regular season, sophomore Gamble received the Ducks’ first-ever CoSIDA Academic All-America honor with her third-team selection in November. The native of Salt Lake City sported a 4.09 GPA in biology, which was the highest among the three All-American Academic teams’ 66 members. Only six other honorees had a GPA of 4.0 or higher.
Also nominated from the Ducks were Regional Academic All-Americans and defenders Mintz and Carlie Ashcraft, and junior defender Dara Wone.
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