Norman — Every flag in L. Dale Mitchell Park was pointing directly at left field Friday. Mother Nature was letting it be known the potential for an old-fashioned slugfest was ripe.
Oklahoma rolled to a 12-1 victory over Western Illinois in the second day of the Sooner Classic, but it wasn’t the long ball that put them over the top.
It was the small ball and plenty of pitching that helped OU improve to 9-1.
“I think that was big for us early on to understand that we could manufacture runs,” OU coach Sunny Golloway said. “I thought we showed a lot of maturity as a club in not swinging for the fence, and doing the little things you need to do to take control of a game.”
It wasn’t mighty swings that did the trick. The Sooners had three bunt singles and four sacrifices en route to their fourth straight win.
They were just as effective.
Western Illinois starting pitcher Austin Brough, who took the loss, fell off the mound to the third-base side with his delivery. It left the right side of the infield open and OU took advantage early and often.
The bunts and stolen bases helped the Sooners build a 7-1 lead after only seven innings.
“We try to work in everything and small ball is a big part of our game,” said OU second baseman Danny Black, who went 2-for-2 and also stole a base. “We had a lot of opportunities and we were able to utilize them.”
The Sooners didn’t need many runs because they had a breakout performance on the mound. Zach Neal entered Friday’s game with two no-decisions in his first two starts. Control issues left some wondering if he will assume the role of OU’s top starting pitcher.
He answered those questions by holding the Leathernecks (3-2) to one run and five hits over 52⁄3 innings. Neal also struck out eight.
“I made some mechanical adjustments this week and just tried to slow everything down and just throw strikes,” Neal said.
Neal only issued one walk against the 23 batters he faced.
“That’s (today) more of what we saw in the fall and that’s more of what we recruited. He’s not a guy that should walk people,” Golloway said. “He has really good control and today he showed that.”
Neal cruised through the first five innings and didn’t really face any trouble until the sixth.
Bryan Jordan ended OU’s shutout bid in the sixth with an RBI single, but the Leathernecks didn’t get much of anything going at the plate. None of the six hits they collected went for extra bases.
Brandon Bargas, Jason Chowning and J.R. Robinson came out of the OU bullpen and held Western Illinois to one hit over the final 31⁄3 innings.
Someone did finally take advantage of the left-field launching pad. Cameron Seitzer drilled a grand slam home run in the eighth inning. It was just icing on the cake. OU had done enough of the little things to put the game away earlier.
“All those runs count the same,” Golloway said. “What you want to do is go out there and control the game.”
John Shinn 366-3536 jshinn@normantranscript.com
