NORMAN — Behind another dominant pitching performance, Oklahoma rolled to an 8-3 victory over Northwestern State Sunday to complete a three-game sweep at L. Dale Mitchell Park.
The victory, the Sooners’ fifth straight, lifted their record to 17-4. The Demons dropped to 9-13.
Adam Choplick (3-0) followed up the exemplary starts Jonathan Gray (Friday) and Dillon Overton (Saturday) had in the series’ first two games. He held the Demons to one run on three hits over 62⁄3 innings Sunday. The redshirt freshman also struck out eight.
It was getting into the seventh inning that signified a huge leap for Choplick, who is one year removed from reconstructive elbow surgery. He wasn’t able to make it through the sixth inning in earlier starts.
Sunday, he did.
“It was a big bar to get over,” Choplick said. “Being able to push it up to 100 pitches, which is my limit, was something I needed to do.”
The start was an audition for the final spot in OU’s weekend rotation. Freshman Corey Copping is scheduled to start Tuesday against Oral Roberts. It will be his first appearance since suffering a shoulder strain a month ago. Copping entered the season as OU’s No. 3 starter and looked dominant in his only start.
However, Choplick showed
Sunday he’s not ready to give up the weekend slot.
“We wanted to let him go as far as we could and extend him just in case he’s the Sunday guy next weekend,” OU coach Sunny Golloway said. “Right now it looks like he’s gonna be.”
The Sooners didn’t make it too tough on the pitching staff.
Matt Oberste went 4 for 4 and extended his season-long hitting streak to 21 games. Max White went 2 for 5 with an RBI and Kolbey Carpenter went 1 for 4 and drove in two runs.
The Sooners led 5-0 after five innings and were never seriously threatened.
Joey Parrack (0-3) took the loss. He gave up three runs on three hits over 22⁄3 innings.
Jacob Evans threw the final 21⁄3 innings to get his third save. He entered in the seventh inning after reliever Billy Waltrip struggled with his control. Waltrip threw 14 pitches, resulting in two walks and a hit batter.
The Sooners still have five games left in their current homestand. They begin a two-game series with Oral Roberts at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
TCU comes to L. Dale Mitchell Park for the first Big 12 series of the season Friday.
John Shinn
Follow me @john_shinn
jshinn@normantranscript.com
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