Oklahoma baseball's Braden Davis repeats as Big 12 Pitcher of Week
By Chip Rouse
Coming off of his best pitching performance of the season, an 8-0 Oklahoma baseball win in Game 1 of last weekend's series at Texas Tech, left-handed starter Braden Davis has repeated a second straight week as Big 12 Pitcher of the Week.
Davis pitched a near-perfect game, going seven innings and allowing no runs on just two hits and eight strikeouts, to record his sixth win of the season and fourth straight as the Friday night starter for the Sooners.
A transfer this season from Sam Houston State, started out slowly to begin the season, but steadied the ship once the conference season began and is 5-1 in Big 12 play with a 3.00 ERA and 62 strikeouts, second most in conference play.
Davis has been part of three Oklahoma shutouts this season, including a combined no-hitter in a 13-0 whitewash over West Virginia. The junior right-hander has been a big part of Oklahoma's climb to the top spot in the Big 12 standings this season.
In being honored as Pitcher of the Week in the conference, Davis is the only Big 12 pitcher to win the award two weeks in a row. Joining the Oklahoma pitcher in weekly honors this week are Player of the Week Nolan Schubart of Oklahoma State and BYU's Kuhio Aloy, Newcomer of the Week.
In other OU baseball news this week, the school announced this week that it will retire the No. 24 jersey of legendary Sooner baseball coach Enos Semore, A ceremony will be held before the Saturday afternoon game with Baylor.
Semore is the winningest coach in OU baseball history with a record of 851-370-1, a .697 winning percentage. Semore coached at Oklahoma from 1968 to 1989 and led the Sooners to five straight College World Series appearances between 1972 and 1976. His 1976 team won a program-record 62 games.
Davis is expected to be on the hill again this Friday as Oklahoma hosts Baylor at L. Dale Mitchell Park in the opener of a weekend series. The Sooners have five Big 12 series sweeps this season. If they are able to do so this weekend against Baylor, it will guarantee OU of no worse than a tie for the Big 12 regular-season championship and will be their first in baseball as a member of the Big 12.