Sooners Drop Season Opener, 15-5, To Bulldogs

The Oklahoma baseball team opened its season with a 15-5 defeat to Gonzaga in both team's opening games of the Coca-Cola Spring Classic at Surprise Stadium. The two teams battled back and forth through the first five frames until the the sixth inning when the Bulldogs opened up an eight-run lead by tagging two OU pitchers for seven runs in the frame. Oklahoma's offense was unable to keep up with the pace as Gonzaga starter Eric Dworkis (1-0) and reliever Nate Williams combined to shut the Sooner offense down on six hits.

Outfielder Jeff Scuderi was OU's most productive offensive player of the game as the junior accounted for two of the team's five hits and drove in a run and scored another. Scuderi also added a stolen base to his game totals.

First game jitters hurt the Sooners from the start of the game. In the top of the first inning, the Sooners committed three errors on the first four batters of the game which eventually led to three unearned runs to give the Bulldogs an early 3-0 cushion.

Box Score

Following suit, Oklahoma began to take advantage of Gonzaga miscues themselves. In the second frame, junior third baseman Matt Bose (1-for-4) started the inning off with a bloop single to center field and moved around to third base on a two-base error on Kyle Bradburry's (0-for-4) at bat. Junior second baseman Brenan Herrera (1-for-3) brought in Bose on a sacrifice fly to center field and advanced Bradburry to third. Bradburry then raced home on a wild pitch two at bats later to score the second run and pull OU to within one at 3-2.

The Sooners continued to capitalize on two more Bulldog errors to plate two more runs and grab their first lead of the contest at 4-3 in the third inning. With the bases loaded due to two walks and an error by the Gonzaga third baseman, the Bulldogs' shortstop misplayed a routine grounder to allow both Scuderi and junior first baseman Ole Sheldon (1-for-4) to score.

Although held to only five hits through the first five innings, the Bulldogs broke out their bats in the top of the sixth frame. Gonzaga roughed up Oklahoma relievers Mike Swindell and Charlie House for seven hits and seven earned runs to put the game away with a 12-4 lead. The Sooners were only able to respond with a single run in the bottom of the inning when Herrera led off the frame with a double and scored on a sacrifice fly by Scuderi.

Senior Mark Roberts (0-1) turned in a solid start for Oklahoma. Following the three run first-inning, where all the runs charged were unearned, Roberts shut Gonzaga down over the next two frames and allowed his only earned runs with single runs in the fourth and fifth innings. He finished the game by allowing only five hits and one walk while striking out five.

A couple of bright spots in the game for OU came late as two heralded freshman pitchers made their debuts. Righthander Ryan Mottern took to the mound first in the seventh inning and tossed a scoreless inning. Mottern displayed good control as he threw strikes on his first six pitches and finished with 11 strikes in his 19 pitch outing. He faced five batters in the frame as his appearance was only prolonged by a fielding error and a walk.

Fellow freshman Charles Benoit followed and finished off the final two frames. The lefthander held the Bulldogs scoreless in the eighth, but was tagged for three runs, with a pair coming on a two-run scoring triple, in the ninth inning.

Oklahoma and Cal State Northridge will open tournament play on Saturday at 12 p.m. (CST) at Surprise Stadium. Sooner righthander Casey Brown (0-0) will oppose Matador lefthander Eddy Camacho (1-0) on the mound.

Sooners Drop Season Opener, 15-5, To Bulldogs

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Sooners Drop Season Opener, 15-5, To Bulldogs

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