Kats Challenge Oklahoma This Weekend
4/23/2015 4:29:00 PM | Baseball
The Sam Houston baseball team will be shooting to pick up more victories over a nationally ranked opponent this weekend when the Bearkats challenge the University of Oklahoma in Norman in a three-game non-conference series.
Starting times for the series are 6 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
The Sooners have won five of their last seven games to climb into the number 23 spot in the national rankings. Oklahoma owns a 28-16 record that includes victories over Texas Tech, Texas, Notre Dame, Washington, Oregon, BYU and Baylor.
Sam Houston brings a 22-20 mark into the contest. The Bearkats shut out Texas 5-0 in Austin last week and owns victories over Rice, Baylor and Wichita State. The team enters the series in Norman having won eight of their last nine games.
The three-time defending Southland Conference baseball champion are taking a weekend break from the tight 2015 league race. The team stands in fourth place in a tight Southland Conference race with an 13-8 record (.619 winning percentage). Southeastern Louisiana leads the league race with a 14-4 mark (.778 winning percentage).
Oklahoma brings a .291 team batting average into the series. Second baseman Kolbey Carpenter and center fielder Craig Aikin sport hitting means of .365 and .358, respectively. The Sooners use the long ball as a weapon with team totals of 29 home runs, 71 doubles and 13 triples.
Sam Houston counters with a .288 batting average led by infielders Spence Rahm (.330) and Bryce Johnson (.330). Outfielder Colt Atwood and infielder Jake MacWilliam bring hitting streaks of seven and five games, respectively, into the weekend.
Rahm leads Sam Houston in multiple hit games with 15 this year including six games with three hits and one with four. Johnson has 11 multiple hit performances.
Jake Elliott (4-3 record, 2.38 ERA), Alec Hansen (4-4 record, 3.67 ERA) and Robert Tasin (7-1 record, 1.41 ERA) are slated as the starting pitchers for the Sooners this weekend.
Sam Houston will start its current rotation of Andrew Godail (2-4 record, 2.45 ERA), Logan Boyd (5-3 record, 3.51 ERA) and Sam Odom (2-4 record, 3.90 ERA).
The Bearkats have been getting strong performances out of the bull pen from Alex Bisacca (4-1 record, 2.28 ERA) and Jordan Church (2-1 record, 2.01 ERA).
Sam Houston will complete its current eight-game road swing Tuesday with their final non-conference away matchup of the 2015 season when the Bearkats travel to face the University of Houston Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m.
Next home action at Don Sanders Stadium is a three-game Southland Conference series with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Friday, Saturday and Sunday May 1-3.
