Baseball: Sooners rely on extra-base hits, Choplick to win game one of double-header

Jono Greco, The Oklahoma Daily

Redshirt freshman pitcher Adam Choplick made his first career start Tuesday. He allowed one unearned run on one hit in five innings against Arkansas-Pine Bluff at L. Dale Mitchell Park.

The No. 18 baseball team scored three runs in the third and took advantage redshirt freshman Adam Choplick’s solid start to claim the 4-2 victory in game one of the double-header against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Tuesday at L. Dale Mitchell Park.

Key Stat: Seven — The Sooners (5-0) hit seven extra-base hits — four doubles and three triples — in Tuesday afternoon’s victory. OU totaled 11 hits against the Golden Lions.

Key Player: Redshirt freshman Adam Choplick — After missing most of his senior year of high school and all of his first year at OU because of two Tommy John surgeries, the 6-foot-8 lefty tossed five innings of one-run — unearned — one-hit ball. Choplick struck out six batters en route to earning his first career win.

What it means: This victory showed the Sooners are loaded with starting pitching, but the middle relief will need some work. While this held true at times during the Hofstra series, this is the kind of game when a team uses multiple pitchers during the middle innings to see which ones can be trustworthy during weekend series, especially once conferences series start.

What’s next for the Sooners: OU will return to the diamond in about 30 minutes to complete the day’s double-header against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

Jono Greco

Jono Greco, journalism graduate student, is the assistant sports editor for the Spring 2013 semester. This is his seventh semester on staff, previously working on the sports desk as the football and baseball beat reporter, as well as multiple other sports beats. He served as copy chief during the Fall 2012 semester.

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