|
Pitchers
pace Frogs in sweep over St. Louis Throughout the season, TCU head coach Lance Brown has stressed the importance of his team’s play against Conference USA opponents. At the halfway point, he couldn’t ask for a much better scenario for his team. On the strength of a weekend sweep of conference foe Saint Louis, the Frogs (20-17, 11-4 C-USA) will travel to face Oklahoma (20-15) today at 6:30 p.m. The weekend series was highlighted by the performance of the starting pitching staff. Juniors Kyle Shoemaker and Patrick Newburn, and sophomore Clayton Jerome (who was named C-USA Co-Pitcher of the week on Monday) combined to throw 24 of the 25 innings, allowing no earned runs and only 16 hits. Newburn threw seven scoreless innings Sunday, which was the longest of the season, at the TCU Diamond. He said the pitching over the weekend allows the Frogs to be more flexible with their bullpen. “It’s always good to pick from eight different pitchers to throw from,” Newburn said. “Tuesday we can start anyone that we need to.” Brown said that with the extensive work done with the bullpen last week, the rest should help their progress. The offensive production continued for the Frogs as they hammered Billikens’ pitching. The major output came on Sunday when the Frogs faced Saint Louis ace Corey Lawson. Lawson entered the game with a 6-1 record with a 1.83 ERA. Undaunted, the Frogs hammered Lawson for 10 runs on 13 hits before he was pulled with one out in the fourth. Junior outfielder Terry Trofholz said he doubts Lawson had seen a hitting group like TCU. “They’ve played some good teams, but we’ve played against some of the best pitchers in the country,” Trofholz said, “When you get that kind of experience, it makes these other guys not as intimidating and gives us more confidence.” With that confidence they face the Sooners today, and Trofholz said a win would mean a great deal in improving position in tournament selection. “This is going to be one of the most important games we play,” Trofholz said. “If we can beat them that makes us that much better.” Danny
Gillham |
|
|
TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
||