OU baseball: Squires continues hot streak as Sooners rout Jayhawks
Apr. 10—Brett Squires' bat quickly flew out of his hands and met the turf as he watched his third home run in four games soar down the right-field line.
The redshirt sophomore's blast gave Oklahoma all the insurance it needed, en route to a 10-4 victory over Kansas on Friday, and added to Squires' impressive start to April.
"We knew when we signed him what kind of type of player he was," OU coach Skip Johnson said. "We knew he had a lot of power. Coach [Clay] Van Hook, coach [Clay] Overcash and coach [Britt] Bonneau, they've been really working on his approach at the plate and tonight was a big thing."
The OU newcomer has needed time to find his groove after dealing with an injury upon arriving to campus in the fall from McLennan College in Waco, Texas. He then suffered a wrist injury before hurting his hamstring this spring.
He's put his health setbacks behind him, going 3 for 4 at the plate on Friday to lead an OU offense that woke up quickly after Kansas took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning.
The Jayhawks scored on a sacrifice fly and RBI single on consecutive at-bats. The Sooners responded with a leadoff home run from Tanner Tredaway, which marked his second consecutive game with a homer and third of the season.
Squires followed Tredaway's solo shot with an RBI single that plated Tyler Hardman, who D1Baseball.com named a midseason All-American on Thursday. OU sophomore Diego Muniz then scored on a throwing error to close the frame.
The Sooners surrendered a second-inning RBI single from Kansas' Maui Ahuna and the Jayhawks scored again in the top of the fourth on one of OU's three errors.
OU blanked Kansas in the final five frames, while adding seven runs between the fourth and seventh innings to secure Johnson's 100th win as OU's head coach.
"We did a good job with their starter, because their starter can really pitch," Johnson said of his team's effort against Kansas pitcher Ryan Cyr, who allowed eight runs and six hits in 4 1/3 innings.
"He's a veteran guy that can really locate his off-speed pitches and kind of keep you off balance. I thought our hitters did a great job doing that tonight."
Closing strong
The Jayhawks missed a major opportunity to cut into the Sooners' five-run advantage during the sixth inning. Kansas loaded the bases on a throwing error, prompting Johnson to put Ledgend Smith in for Carson Carter, who faced just two batters.
Smith cleaned up the jam, striking out one Jayhawk and the next grounding out to the pitcher.
Smith allowed no runs and two hits in three innings of relief. Luke Taggart entered the game with two outs remaining in the ninth after Kansas put runners on first and second.
"I thought Ledgend Smith was really good," Johnson said. "He just kind of ran out of gas. I used him three innings on [Tuesday] and ran him back out there tonight because he felt good."
OU starter Wyatt Olds struck out six, walked three and allowed six hits and four runs to pick up his second win.
Odd weather
The Sooners and Jayhawks were subjected to on-brand weather conditions for Oklahoma, which included warm weather for most of the day before a lightning delay pushed the contest back 30 minutes and strong winds persisted throughout the night.
"It was a weird night," Johnson said. "To start off, it was really humid all day long, and go out there and and all of a sudden we have a delay in the game and the wind starts really blowing really hard out of the northwest."
The wind hovered around 30 miles per hour at times, not that Squires, a Grapevine, Texas, native and first-year Sooner, minded.
"It's definitely different. I'm not quite used to it yet," he said. "But hey, whatever helps. I'm here for it."
Next
The Sooners (15-14) and Jayhawks (17-12) will meet at 3:30 p.m. today for the second game of the three-game set. The game will be televised on Bally Sports Oklahoma and can be heard locally on KREF 1400 AM/99.3 FM.
Joe Buettner
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