John Shinn
• Dunigan big at the plate as OU ties series with A&M;
By John Shinn
Transcript Sports Writer
Oklahoma had a meeting of the minds before Saturday’s game with Texas A&M.;
The question was: Who should be hitting third in the lineup?
OU, coming off a series-opening loss to Texas A&M;, needed some offensive production. The consensus answer was Joe Dunigan.
And the consensus was right.
The junior outfielder went 3-for-5 with four RBIs to help power the Sooners to a series-evening 9-3 victory of the Aggies at L. Dale Mitchell Park.
Dunigan had been batting second in the order most of the season, but he’s put up heart-of-the-order numbers. He leads the team with five home runs and entered the day with 27 RBIs.
He left the ballpark with a team-leading 31 RBIs and lifted his batting average to .365.
About the only thing he didn’t increase was his confidence level. It was already sky high.
“Everyday when I come to the park I know I’m going to start,” Dunigan said. “I’m confident at the plate because I’ve put in a lot of work … It’s turning into a good year.”
A career year to be more precise.
OU’s been trying to unlock Dunigan’s vast potential since he arrived in 2005. The 6-foot-2, 240-pound Chicagoan has raw strength rarely seen in college baseball.
But he hit only five homers and drove in 36 runs in his first two seasons.
He’s already matched those totals in about half a season.
Dunigan gave OU a 1-0 lead with an RBI single in the third inning and added another RBI single in the fifth and a two-run base hit in the sixth.
The last put the Sooners up 6-1 and put them on cruise control toward evening the series.
“That is the type of player Joe has become, and he provided us with three key hits today that really got us going,” OU coach Sunny Golloway said. “Joe’s performance is what we try to teach our young men everyday. Regardless of what you do or don’t do early in a game, all that matters is how you perform in that next at-bat or with that next pitch.”
While Dunigan has been on track all season, the Sooners got back on theirs after stumbling Friday. The victory lifted them to 19-7 and 1-1 in the Big 12 Conference.
Texas A&M; dropped to 22-4 and 3-2 while both teams put on polar-opposite performances from the series opener.
OU pitcher Heath Taylor wasn’t dominant, but he pitched his way out of jams and never gave in to the hot-hitting Aggies. He allowed two runs on five hits over six innings. He also struck out four and walked four.
“I didn’t hit my spots as good as I’d like to and I had a little help with that from the umpire,” Taylor said. “I just tried to find ways to get guys out.”
He improved to 5-0.
Taylor may not have gotten much help from home plate umpire Ken McQueen, but he wasn’t betrayed by his defense like Texas A&M; starter Kyle Thebeau.
The game was tied 1-1, but two errors by second baseman Parker Dalton and another by shortstop Brandon Hicks opened the floodgates to three Sooner runs.
Jackson Williams, who went 2-for-4, picked up an RBI single after the errors and Jarod Freeman added another to give the Sooners a 4-1 lead.
Thebeau (2-1) pitched 51?3 innings, giving up nine hits and six runs. Only three runs were earned.
After Dunigan’s sixth-inning, two-run single lifted OU’s lead to five runs, OU added three more in the seventh on Bryant Hernandez’s RBI single and Aljay Davis’ two-run single.
And the Sooners are back on track to win in their first conference series of the season. They’ll try to accomplish that feat at 1 p.m. today in Game 3 of the series.
