BRIEFLY.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Royster honored by Rays

Churchill graduate Ryan Royster was named Tampa Bay Devil Rays minor league player of the year and was honored in a pregame ceremony at Tropicana Field before Tampa Bay's game against the New York Yankees last week.

"It was an outstanding feeling," Royster said this week from St. Petersburg, Fla., where he is playing for Tampa Bay's instructional-league team.

"I have been there a couple times in my career, and that was fun, but this was the best to get the organization player of the year award. It was like no other award I've accepted. "

Royster, a sixth-round pick in the 2004 draft, led all Tampa Bay minor-league players in each of the three triple-crown categories, hitting .329 with 30 home runs and 98 RBIs for Single-A Columbus.

His 30 home runs, .601 slugging percentage and 65 extra-base hits led the South Atlantic League, and he ranked second in RBIs and third in average.

Royster's 30 home runs tied for 11th in the minor leagues, and his 285 total bases ranked eighth.

"I felt like I had a good season coming, but this was better than I thought," Royster said.

"But seasons come and go, and this season is over so I will try to get better and have a similar type of season next year.

"The hardest thing to do is repeat how you did before."

Locals picked for ODP 

Six Eugene soccer players and one from Cottage Grove have been chosen for the Olympic Development Program pool by the Oregon Youth Soccer Association.

Eugene's Tahne Apo, Taylor Housley, Chloe Kronberger and Alison Wonn were among the girls selected for the player pool, and Cottage Grove's Zach Donner and Eugene's Guillermo Ulloa and Eric Wonn were picked for the boys pool.

Olympic Development Program teams are formed at the state association and regional levels and are made up of players in various age groups.

Players in the ODP pools are eligible for state, regional and national teams.

Illinois studies bat issue

A research project commissioned by the Illinois High School Association showed that baseball games played with non-wood bats took longer and resulted in more runs scored, but researchers at Illinois State University found that there was no statistically significant difference in injuries.

The comparative research of teams using both kinds of bats during the season indicated an average of 8.77 hits per game in games with non-wood bats compared with 6.50 hits per game in games with wood bats.

In addition, non-wood bat games lasted more than 12 minutes longer.

The participating schools reported five injuries in games with non-wood bats in a total of 4,682 at-bats, compared with two injuries in games with wood bats in 4,462 total at-bats.

However, ISU researchers said, after analysis, these data show that there is no statistical difference in injury rates when using a non-wood bat compared with a wood bat.

Of the seven total injuries, only two caused the players to miss playing time, and neither of those involved a bat.

One player was hit in the face by a pitched ball and another sustained a blister on a finger. None of the injuries from a batted ball required any player to lose playing time in either the wood-bat games or the non-wood-bat games.

Alumni notes

Junction City graduate Ryan Rauschert caught five passes for 63 yards and threw a touchdown pass on a fake field goal to lead Northern Arizona to a 34-14 victory over Northern Colorado in the Big Sky Conference.

Rauschert is the holder on special teams and he threw a five-yard touchdown pass on a fake to give the Lumberjacks a 24-7 lead. ...

Cottage Grove graduate Dayton Edwards was named Great Plains Athletic Conference offensive player of the week after he threw four touchdown passes to lead Hastings College to a 37-9 win over Dana.

Edwards, a 5-foot-10 junior, was 14-for-24 for 322 yards to help Hastings improve to 3-0 for the first time since 1999.

Edwards played at Mendocino Community College before transferring to Hastings in Nebraska. ...

Former Sheldon goalkeeper Garrett Staples was named Cascade Collegiate Conference defensive player of the week after not allowing a goal in three games for Concordia.