Sports Insiders: Southern Oregon Sports Blog

Oregon State’s strong start got the attention of CBSsports.com senior writer Bruce Feldman today. He ranks the Beavers No. 1 in his list of top-10 pleasant surprises this week in college football. Coach Mike Riley was viewed to be on the hot seat after going 8-16 the past two seasons (how hot does the chair really get in Corvallis?). So it’s nice to see Mr. Nice Guy having success.

The story suggests the Beavers have been down and out for a while, but they averaged nines wins from 2006 to ’09. It’s reasonable to assume the fast start this season is attributed to strong recruiting classes off those successful campaigns.

The story praises the OSU defense, ranked No. 2 in the nation against the run, and talented quarterback Sean Mannion. It says that defense wrecked the Heisman campaigns of Wisconsins Montee Ball and UCLA’s Johnathan Franklin, but it seems a bit premature to me to make that assertion.

For a little look into the life of Kyle Singler, Detroit Pistons basketball player, during a game, check this out. He wore a microphone during a Summer League game in Florida last month.

Dylan Wu and the rest of the field at the Callaway Junior World Golf Championships in La Jolla, Calif., were delayed this morning by thick fog. The tournament at Torrey Pines’ South Course features top juniors in the world and was relegated to two shotgun starts today, the first at 9 a.m. and the second at 3 p.m. Ordinarily, they have rolling starts from the Nos. 1 and 10 tees.

Wu went off at 9 a.m. on No. 17. Two holes behind him and also starting at 9 was an interesting group. It included Beau Hossler, the top junior in the country, and George Cunningham, who won the inaugural American Junior Golf Association tournament at Centennial Golf Club in 2010.

To follow along, go to http://juniorworldgolf.com/ Scores will be posted after the completion of each wave of play today. Barring a similar setup for the net three rounds, players’ scores will be recorded as they come in.

For those with access to NBA TV — I know it’s on DirecTv (Ch. 216) and Dish (Ch. 402) — You can catch Kyle Singler in action with the Detroit Pistons summer league team. The games from Orlando are being televised this week. Singler scored 14 points in a fine showing in the Pistons’ 76-73 win over Utah on Monday. A smattering of reviews have come in, and they’ve been positive.

Here’s an example from the Detroit Free Press’ today.

Found this tidbit circulating online today. A little more on Kyle Singler’s summer activities:

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/playerbreakingnews.asp?sport=NBA&id=1863&line=182462&spln=1

Detroit Pistons general manager Joe Dumars recently went to Spain to woo Kyle Singler back to the organization. According to this story, Singler will play for the Pistons in the July summer league.

Detroit drafted the former South Medford player in the second round last year, but he opted to play in Spain, where he’s wrapping up his season with Real Madrid. Real has been good to Singler and it might take some doing for the Pistons to pry him away.

Phoenix tennis player Wil Cochrane will be the guest Friday when the Mail Tribune’s live, unscripted and interactive sports chat returns for a 95th week.

Cochrane will speak with Mail Tribune sports reporter Dan Jones at noon on Facebook. Log on to the show (www.facebook.com/mtsportschat) to watch and participate. Cochrane and Jones will take questions and comments live. You can also call us during the show at 541-776-4499, email us at djones@mailtribune.com or post your questions on the Sports Chat wall.

Become a fan of Sports Chat on Facebook. Just click on the link (www.facebook.com/mtsportschat) and then on “Like” to receive occasional updates!

This week, Cochrane did not drop a set en route to defending his District 4 title. Last year, he lost to La Salle Prep’s Luis Pineda in the Class 4A/3A/2A/1A state championship match.

Cochrane created the Uncle Bill’s Cancer Awareness Tournament, which will take place Saturday at Rogue Valley Swim & Tennis Club. The proceeds will benefit the American Cancer Society.

Former North Medford standout Jason Slowey didn’t waste any time signing with the Niners, according to this report on Niners Nation. He’s the first of their draft picks to sign and looks like he’ll make a nice chunk of change. There are also some glowing comments about him from coach Jim Harbaugh and others.

Here’s a report from my buddy Tom Ward of KVAL in Eugene on the new par-3 course at Bandon Dunes. The Preserve, which is unique in many ways — one being it has 13 holes — is set to open next week. We went there last year as part of a Northwest Golf Media Association trip, and it was mostly all sand as they were doing the shaping. You could make out the route by flags in the ground where greens would be, and the views were spectacular. As Tom says, maybe the best views of any par 3 in the world.

I wrote about the St. Mary’s boys golf team for today’s paper, heralding the 294 it shot at Centennial Golf Club Wednesday. The story suggested not many local teams had gone so low in recent years, and the most likely candidates would have been Phoenix teams that finished among the top two in the state the Class 4A level from 2006-08. A quick note to Pirates coach Kyle Walker confirmed it.

There is not bank of data for regular-season golf records. There are state tournament records available, but that’s it. Individual schools might keep records, might keep partial records or might not keep any records.

For that reason, I didn’t research it much and didn’t make any blanket declarations that Phoenix or St. Mary’s were the only ones to go so low. But I did forget about the North Medford teams that were led by Mike Barry and Adam Brown, circa 2004-05. The teams included Dave Mayer, Mark Wilson and Chris Oetinger, and went sub-300 a whopping five times in 2004. The Black Tornado shot 291 at Running Y and 296 in the state tournament at Trysting Tree in Corvallis, placing third.

A year later, North Medford shot a 288 at Running Y, led by Barry’s 64.

Much earlier, Medford won four straight state titles from 1979-82, shooting a two-round 599 in ‘82 and a 600 in ‘80.

But the best local team had to be the 1967 Black Tornado. It set the state record for score in relation to par (13 under), shooting a 579 at Glendoveer East in Portland. That course was a par 74 at the time.

I did a story about that eight years ago, after a studly Tualatin team was celebrated for having posted the lowest score in state-tournament history (568) at Trysting Tree. The relation-to-par issue was brought to my attention then, as Tualatin was “only” 8 under on the par-72 layout. Because of input from players on that ’67 team, the OSAA now recognizes scores as they relate to par in its record keeping.