Key Top-10 Series Awaits Sooners

April 11, 2008

No. 7 OU (35-9, 8-0) at No. 5 Texas A&M (37-6, 9-0)
Game 1	Saturday, April 12 - 2 p.m.
Game 2	Sunday, April 13 - 12 p.m.
Location	College Station, Texas
Radio	KOKC 1520 AM for Game 2
Webcast	AggieAthletics.com
Live Stats	SoonerSports.com / GameTracker
Game Info	Game Notes (PDF) \| OU Media Guide

NORMAN, Okla. -A key Big 12 series awaits the No. 7 Oklahoma softball team this weekend in College Station, Texas. The Sooners will face No. 5 Texas A&M in a top-10 showdown that could have strong implications on the Big 12 race. The Sooners (39-5, 8-0) and Aggies (37-6, 9-0) are the lone teams with a perfect Big 12 record.

The first game of the two-game series will begin at 2 p.m. on Saturday while the series will conclude on Sunday with a 12 p.m. contest.

RADIO COVERAGE
Saturday's game against Texas A&M will be available on internet only via Oklahoma All-Access due to the OU football spring game while Sunday's game can be heard on KOKC 1520 AM.

LIVE STATS & WEBCAST
Live stats are available for all games this season on SoonerSports.com. A live webcast of the series can be found on Texas A&M's web site, aggieatheltics.com.

SCOUTING TEXAS A&M
The two teams are very similar on paper as Texas A&M leads the conference in batting in Big 12 games while Oklahoma is second. The Sooners lead the conference in pitching and Texas A&M is second.

Saturday and Sunday will feature a battle of the league's top two pitchers as OU's D.J. Mathis (22-4, 0.93 ERA) and TAMU's Megan Gibson (23-0, 0.94 ERA) will go head-to-head. The Sooners will look to blemish Gibson's perfect record. The All-American has had to step up for the Aggies as fellow standout pitcher Amanda Scarborough is out for the year with a foot injury. Gibson has been solid with 10 shutouts this year while holding opponents to a .169 average and averaging over seven strikeouts in each appearance this season.

Offensively, the Aggies are solid as they own a .343 batting average in Big 12 action this season. Natalie Villarreal is leading the power side of the offense with 10 RBI and two home runs in eight Big 12 games this season while Jamie Hinshaw, the current Big 12 Co-Player of the Week, has eight RBI and two home runs. Alex Reynolds is another strong threat with a team-best .550 average in Big 12 action and seven RBI.

SERIES RECORDS
Oklahoma owns the 34-25 lead over Texas A&M in the all-time series, but the series has been very even since 2004. In the last four years, Texas A&M leads 6-5.

LAST MEETING
The two teams have split their last two series in Norman and College Station. Last season in Norman, OU took the first game 4-2, but fell 9-4 in the second game of the series. Lauren Eckermann took the win in the first game, while D.J. Mathis took the loss in the second game.

SOONERS MOVE BACK INTO TOP 10
Following its sweep of Missouri last weekend, the Sooners moved back into the top 10. Oklahoma is No. 7 in the NFCA/USA Today Poll and moved up to No. 9 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Poll.

OU AND ARIZONA ONLY TWO SCHOOLS TO BE RANKED IN NFCA POLL ITS ENTIRE EXISTENCE
The Sooners have been ranked in the top 25 of every NFCA poll since its inception, which spans 180 weeks long. OU and Arizona are the only programs to be ranked in the NFCA Top-25 every week of its existence.

UP NEXT
Following its trip to Texas A&M, the Sooners will have a light week as their next game will not be until Saturday, April 20 when they take on Iowa State in Ames, Iowa at 2 p.m. The second game of the series will begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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