Duck soccer scores in WUSA Draft
Oregon senior goalkeeper Sarah Peters was the 28th overall selection in Sunday’s Women’s United Soccer Association Draft, and she’ll play alongside an Oregon assistant coach for the San Jose CyberRays next season.
Peters was taken in the fourth round by the CyberRays, who also picked up Oregon assistant Keri Sanchez on Sunday via trade from the Boston Breakers. Sanchez, a former North Carolina player who has national-team experience, has started 34 games for the Breakers over the last two seasons.
“Being drafted has been a dream,” Peters said. “I’m really excited to get to train with somebody with as much experience as LaKeysia (Beene, CyberRays starter and 2001 WUSA Goalkeeper of the Year) and I look forward to that challenge.”
San Jose, led by national star Brandi Chastain, won the inaugural WUSA Cup in 2001 but missed the playoffs in 2002. Ironically, the CyberRays were eliminated from playoff contention in the last game of last season by Sanchez’s former team, the Breakers.
— Peter Hockaday
Tennis rolls at home
The No. 46 Oregon women’s tennis team rolled past Portland and Idaho at home this Saturday. The Ducks won both matches 7-0 without losing a single set.
No. 28 Daria Panova remained undefeated in the regular season and extended her win streak to nine matches dating back to her Pac-10 Indoor Championship.
The men improved their record to 2-1 on Saturday with a 5-2 victory over No. 72 Brigham Young in Provo, Utah.
No. 64 Manuel Kost came back from an abdominal injury to win the number four singles match for the Ducks 6-2, 7-6 in his first match of the regular season.
The Ducks played New Mexico State on Sunday.
Next weekend both the men and women play at home. The men take on Portland and the women battle Sacramento State, Pacific and California-Irvine.
— Ryan Heath
Softball opens
season in style
The Duck softball team opened the season swinging for the fences, and while they didn’t hit many balls over the fence, they still knocked a few proverbial dingers.
Freshman pitcher Amy Harris starred for Oregon, giving up only two earned runs and 13 hits in 16 innings as the Ducks went 4-1 over a weekend-long tournament in San Marcos, Texas. Oregon opened with a 10-0 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, then had three consecutive 2-1 wins over Texas Tech, host Southwest Texas State and Houston before falling 3-1 to Arkansas on Sunday.
Harris, a highly-touted recruit who led North Eugene High School to a state championship in 2000, won the Texas Tech game and lost the Arkansas game despite giving up only one earned run.
— Peter Hockaday
Golf heads to Ping
After a two month layoff, the Oregon men’s golf team will travel to Tucson, Ariz., to begin the second half of its 2002-03 schedule today and Tuesday at the Ping Arizona Intercollegiate.The par-71, 6,900-yard Arizona National Course will test the 15 squads participating. Oregon, which finished in the top 10 in all four events it played during the fall season, will face 11 of the nation’s top 50 teams. Included in the field is No. 3 Wake Forest, host and No. 10 Arizona, No. 15 New Mexico, No. 17 UCLA, No. 21 Pepperdine, along with two-time defending Pacific-10 Conference champion USC.
Ducks competing in the two-day event include seniors John Ellis and Chris Carnahan, junior Jimmy White and freshmen Gregg LaVoie and Justin St. Clair. Ellis, Oregon’s most dominant player thus far, completed an impressive fall with two top-10 finishes and a stroke average of 72.1.
— Scott Archer
Track squads build to success in Idaho
Samie Parker and Niki McEwan lived up to the hype and starred for the Oregon track and field squads in their second meet of the indoor season, the Bodybuilding.com Invitational in Nampa, Idaho.
Parker notched an NCAA provisional mark (6.68 seconds) in the 60-meter dash, the football star’s first race of the season. McEwan also notched an NCAA-provisional height in the pole vault, jumping 13 feet, 9 1/4 inches one week after matching the Oregon record at 14-1 1/4.
The Ducks had four wins and three runners-up all told in the Idaho meet.
— Peter Hockaday
