EUGENE - After two of the top offensive seasons in Duck softball history, University of Oregon junior Neena Bryant was honored to the 50-player USA Softball Preseason Player of the Year Watch List announced this week.

The explosive hitter from Placentia, Calif., was a 2008 All-Pac-10 Second Team choice after she led the team in batting (.330), slugging (.536), hits (64), home runs (10) and multi-hit games (16), and ranked second in on-base pct. (.351), doubles (10) and runs (28) and third in steals (23).

All-time for UO, she stands top-10 all-time in a season in doubles (4th, 14, 2007), home runs (10th, 10, 2007, ‘08),  extra-base hits (5th, 25, 2007) and total bases (9th, 104, 2007, ‘08),  and ninth in career stolen bases (33).

Bryant is one of 13 Pac-10 players on the list from seven of the eight Pac-10 teams. Others picked included Arizona's Brittany Lastrapes (So., OF) and Jenae Leles (Sr., 3B), Arizona State's Kaitlin Cochran (Sr., OF) and Krista Donnenwirth (So., SS-3B), California's Valerie Arioto (So., UT), Stanford's Alissa Haber (Jr., OF) and Missy Penna (Sr. P-IF), UCLA's GiOnna DiSalvatore (So., UT) and Amanda Kamekona (Sr., IF), Megan Langenfeld (Jr., P-1B) and Washington's Ashley Charters (Sr., IF) and Danielle Lawrie (Jr., P).

Looking ahead, the Ducks are only a week away from their season opener - the Kajikawa Tournament in Tempe, Ariz., and hosted by Arizona State University.

UO first faces UC Santa Barbara and Wichita State, Friday, February 6 at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Mountain Time (9 a.m./2 p.m. PT). Oregon then takes on Texas Tech and UTEP, Saturday, February 7 at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. MT (9 / 11:30 a.m.), and Wagner, Sunday (2/8) at 8 a.m. MT (7 a.m. PT).

More tourney info is available at the wwww.TheSunDevils.com website.

 

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