Best men’s team: Football
It’s hard to argue with the accomplishments of the 2009 football team. Pac-10 Champs. First Rose Bowl since 1995. Wins over No. 6 Cal and No. 4 USC. Chip Kelly Pac-10 Coach of the Year. Only a win over Ohio State in Pasadena would have made it sweeter.
Honorable mentions: men’s golf, men’s cross country, indoor track, baseball
Men’s MVP: Ashton Eaton
Ashton Eaton will go down in Oregon sporting lore as the greatest athlete in school history. He has been dominant in multi-events competition throughout his career, with two NCAA decathlon titles and two NCAA indoor heptathlon titles. He is a five-time Pacific-10 Conference Champion, a world record-holder (indoor heptathlon) and a near-lock to win The Bowerman, college track and field’s Heisman Trophy. As he caps his storied career at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships this week (he’s competing in the decathlon and long jump, an unheard-of double), Eaton’s athletic future looks bright as ever.
Honorable mentions: LaMichael James, Eddie Rodriguez
Women’s MVP: Taylor Lilley
The Ducks will miss a lot about Taylor Lilley next year: her quiet leadership, virtuoso ball-handling skills and relentless defense among them. But what players, coaches and fans alike will probably miss the most will be her NBA range
three-pointers. Lilley ends her career at Oregon as the school’s all-time leader in three-pointers with 270 and also holds single-game and single-season records. She now plays in the WNBA for the Phoenix Mercury.
Honorable mentions: Jessica Moore, Sonja Newcombe, Brianne Theisen
Male unsung hero: John Boyett
Playing in a secondary unit that saw two senior starters go down with season-ending knee injuries and a third that missed more than half the season, redshirt freshman John Boyett surfaced as the rock that held Oregon’s defensive backs together in 2009. After taking over for injured senior T.J. Ward at free safety, Boyett stood out as the Ducks’ leading tackler during his first season (90 total, 6.9 per game). Boyett’s knack for the big plays and even bigger games — he tallied a career-high 12 stops in Oregon’s Rose Bowl loss to Ohio State — made Boyett a vital asset to Oregon’s defense. He was awarded second-team All-Pac-10 honors, as well as freshman All-American accolades, and took on the role of a vocal leader to his younger counterparts during spring camp.
Honorable mentions: A.J. Acosta, Morgan Flint, Daniel Miernicki, Scott McGough
Biggest disappointment: football offseason
While men’s basketball coach Ernie Kent and Oregon’s winningest football coach Mike Bellotti were disappointments this year, the off-field troubles of the football team disappointed an entire fan base after a magical run to the Rose Bowl. Theft, assault, DUII, and team rule violations plagued Oregon from January until the start of spring ball in March. Now Oregon will have to play without star QB Jeremiah Masoli for the entire 2010 season.
Honorable mentions: Ernie Kent, Mike Bellotti
Biggest story: Rose Bowl
The most popular sport at the University provided Duck fans with a lot of highs and lows in 2009. LeGarrette Blount’s punch at Boise State. Seven straight wins, including a Halloween pounding of USC. A 37-33 win over Oregon State in the Civil War to win the Pac-10 Crown, followed by a BCS bowl. It was a good year for first-year head coach Chip Kelly at 10-3.
Honorable mentions: football offseason, women’s track, Mike Bellotti, Blount, baseball postseason, Dana Altman, Ashton Eaton’s world record
Best male newcomer: E.J. Singler
Despite another tough year for the Oregon men’s basketball team, E.J. Singler emerged as one of the lone bright spots on an otherwise disappointing squad. The Medford, Ore., native earned his minutes as a hard-nosed rebounder with an unquestionable feel for the game, starting 22 games for the Ducks as a true freshman. Though the numbers don’t jump off the page (6.1 points and 4.3 rebounds per game), Singler’s work ethic led him to the third-most minutes played on the team behind Malcolm Armstead and Tajuan Porter. Singler was named an honorable mention to the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team and Oregon’s defensive player of the year at season’s end.
Honorable mentions: Jack Marder, LaMichael James, John Boyett, Mac Fleet
Best broken record: Ashton Eaton’s 6,499 points (World Indoor Heptathlon Record)
Before the indoor heptathlon 1,000 meters at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 13, an act of sportsmanship changed track and field history. The faster distance runners in the field approached Oregon’s Ashton Eaton, who had 5,542 points after six events and required a time of 2:34.58 to break Dan O’Brien’s 1993 world and American record; Eaton had never run 1,000 meters below 2:38. His competitors encouraged him to stay with them; they guided him through the race to a time of 2:32.67, a six-second personal best, to give Eaton a mark of 6,499 points — 25 above O’Brien’s record.
Honorable mentions: Taylor Lilley (Oregon 3-point record), Tajuan Porter (Oregon 3-point record)
Best women’s team: Indoor Track and Field
The Oregon women’s track and field team’s rebuilding project was completed on March 13 in Fayetteville, Ark., at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. With 61 points, the Ducks captured the first national title in a women’s sport in 23 years, besting Tennessee and LSU. Oregon scored in seven events; Brianne Theisen won the indoor pentathlon national title, and the women’s 4×400-meter relay team won the final event of the meet. The relay win happened to come with the team race no longer in doubt.
Honorable mentions: softball, women’s golf
Most improved individual: Eugene Wong
Just a year ago, very few people knew much of anything about Eugene Wong. He was just a freshman playing for a men’s golf team that drew little attention. Now, as the Ducks come off a third place finish at the NCAA Championships, Wong has officially arrived. The sophomore was the co-Pac-10 Player of the Year and last week was named a first-team All-American. But the biggest news came on Sunday when he was named the Jack Nicklaus Award recipient, an award given to the nation’s top collegiate golfer.
Honorable mentions: A.J. Acosta, Eddie Rodriguez
Coaches of the year: George Horton and Casey Martin
Arguably the two best stories of the year, Horton and Martin have worked miracles.
Horton, in just the second year of the baseball program, turned the Ducks from a 14-42 team to a 40-win team that made it to the championship round of the regional rounds. And Martin turned a sophomore-laden men’s golf team into the No. 1 team in the country, led them to a third place finish at NCAAs and had the National Player of the Year in Eugene Wong.
Honorable mentions: Mike White, Vin Lananna, Chip Kelly
Most improved teams: Baseball & Softball
No two programs made a more impressive one-year turnaround than Oregon’s baseball and softball teams. Just one season removed from the inaugural 14-win season, head coach George Horton turned the Duck baseball program into a national contender in the fierce Pacific-10 Conference, including a 3-3 record against No. 1 teams in the nation and a trip to the postseason. Meanwhile, the softball team, under the newfound guidance of first-year head coach Mike White, made its first-ever trip to the Super Regional r
ound after sweeping the Atlanta Regional. The Ducks came within two games of reaching the Women’s College World Series before falling to the Missouri Tigers in back-to-back outings.
Honorable mentions: men’s golf, women’s basketball
Best female newcomer: Samantha Pappas
Few players have made more of an impact in their first collegiate season than Oregon freshman Samantha Pappas did for the women’s softball team this spring. The Pac-10 Freshman Player of the Year and first-team All-Pac-10 selection was one of four freshmen who helped revamp the Oregon program in 2010. Pappas was one of only two players to start all 57 games this season, while leading the Ducks in at-bats (167), hits (64), home runs (11), RBI (48), walks (27) and stolen bases (11). She proved to be an outstanding defensive player in right field as well with one of the strongest arms on the team, which was to be expected after an outstanding high school pitching career.
Honorable mentions: Jordan Hasay, Jessica Moore, Anne Kesselring, Katherine Fischer, Cheyenne Hickle
Female unsung hero: Nevena Djordjevic
Nevena Djordjevic is the very definition of “unsung.” Soft-spoken by nature, she preferred to lead by example throughout her four years at Oregon. But for every powerful spike by Sonja Newcombe or Neticia Enesi, there had to be a perfectly set pass behind it. As a setter, Djordjevic proved to be a perfect distributor for the Ducks, dishing out school-record 4,400 assists during her career.
Honorable mentions: Micaela Cocks, Amanda Johnson, Mikayla Endicott
Dishonorable mention: Jeremiah Masoli
On Oct. 31, 2009, ESPN ran a feature on its College GameDay preview show about Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli’s improvisational skills outside of the pocket. On Jan. 24, Masoli improvised a theft of two laptop computers, a guitar and a projector with wide receiver Garrett Embry. Days later, Masoli improvised an alibi for head football coach Chip Kelly and others regarding his involvement in the highly publicized incident. On March 11, Masoli improvised a guilty plea for one count of second-degree burglary and was sentenced to probation, restitution and community service. The senior’s 2010 football season will follow a tight script: He is suspended from all football games, and his name and reputation remain irreparably tarnished among students, fans and the institution of college football.
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The year in sports: off and running
Daily Emerald
June 6, 2010
Ivar Vong
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