Cowboys Set For NCAA Regional Play

#1-seed Oklahoma State (37-18) at the NCAA Stillwater Regional

Fri., May 29-Mon., June 1

Allie P. Reynolds Stadium (4,000)
Stillwater, Okla.

Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State returns to the NCAA Baseball Championship for the third consecutive year, and just as they were in 2014, the Cowboys are the top-seeded team and host of the NCAA Stillwater Regional. OSU brings a 37-18 record into the tourney and is ranked as high as No. 11 nationally.

The Cowboys enter NCAA play sporting a .279 team batting average, with outfielders Corey Hassel and Ryan Sluder leading the way at .305, while the pitching staff owns a 2.84 ERA and has eight hurlers who have posted a sub-3.00 ERA.

Cowboys At The NCAA Baseball Championship
Oklahoma State is making its 41st appearance in the NCAA Baseball Championship, which ranks fourth all time, and owns a 139-87 (.615) record in the tourney. The 139 wins is seventh all time. The Cowboys have also made 19 College World Series appearances, which is tied for sixth all time.

OSU is seeking to advance to the fourth NCAA Super Regional in program history (1999, 2007, 2014). Should the Cowboys advance out of the Stillwater Regional, they will face the winner of the NCAA Springfield Regional in a Super Regional.

The 2015 NCAA Regional berth is OSU's third in as many seasons under head coach Josh Holliday. In Holliday's first season at the helm of his alma mater, the Cowboys advanced to the finals of the 2013 NCAA Louisville Regional as the No. 3 seed, and a year ago, OSU captured its first Regional championship since 2007.

This marks the second-straight year OSU has hosted an NCAA Regional and the 12th time overall at Reynolds Stadium. The Cowboys are 36-11 all time in Regional play on their current home field and have won seven Regional titles, including one last season.

The Stillwater Regional Field
Arkansas is the No. 2-seed at the Stillwater Regional and is 35-22 on the season. The 20th-ranked Razorbacks are hitting .289 and sport a 4.16 team ERA.

Winners of 13 of its last 14 games, third-seeded and 24th-ranked Oral Roberts is 41-14 on the year. The Summit League champions are hitting .321 with a 3.10 ERA.

St. John's enters Regional play on a 15-game winning streak, and the Big East champions are 39-14 overall. The 21st-ranked Red Storm are hitting .291, while the pitching staff owns a 3.84 ERA.

Watch, Listen, Follow
All OSU baseball games are carried live by Stillwater Radio and air on KSPI 93.7 FM or 780 AM. Rex Holt, who is in his 33rd season on the air with Cowboy baseball, will call the action, with Matt "Chief" Davis providing color commentary. Radio broadcasts are also available online for a fee at www.okstate.com, with links available under the Schedule tab on the baseball home page.

Live stats for all NCAA Baseball Championship games can be found at www.ncaa.com. Additionally, fans can follow the official OSU Baseball twitter page, @OSUBaseball, for in-game updates.

All games of the Stillwater Regional will also be available online via ESPN3/WatchESPN or on the SEC Network. Mark Neely and Jay Powell will call the games for ESPN.

In The Polls
OSU is ranked as high as 11th nationally, earning that spot in this week's Baseball America, D1Baseball.com and NCBWA polls. The Cowboys are ranked 12th in the current USA Today coaches poll, 14th by Perfect Game and 15th by Collegiate Baseball.

OSU has been ranked in at least one national poll for 48 consecutive weeks dating back to 2013, when the Cowboys were in the polls for the final 14 weeks of the season, and on March 6, they had an 11-week streak of being in the top 10 snapped. They were ranked as high as No. 3 (NCBWA) in 2014 and finished the season ranked 10th in each of the final polls, marking the 19th time in program history OSU ended the season in the top 10 in the national polls.

2,500 Club
With its series-opening win over Baylor, Oklahoma State became just the 18th program in Division I history to reach 2,500 victories. Of those achieving that feat, only one has played fewer season's than OSU's 104 (Florida State with 68).

OSU entered the 2015 season ranked sixth all time in NCAA history with a .665 winning percentage.

The Century Mark
In his third season as head coach at his alma mater, Josh Holliday became the sixth skipper to record 100 career wins at Oklahoma State. Holliday's 100th win came against Grand Canyon in his 143rd game, making him the second-fastest Cowboy boss to reach 100 victories.

Home Sweet Home
Allie P. Reynolds Stadium has been home to Oklahoma State baseball since April 4, 1981, and in those 34 seasons, the Cowboys have been nearly unbeatable on their home field.

OSU is 879-206 (.810) all time at Reynolds Stadium and has lost more than two consecutive games on their home turf only five times (six in a row in 2007; three straight in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014).

The Cowboys are 18-6 on their home field in 2015.

Comeback Cowboys
Come-from-behind victories have become a trend for the Cowboys under Josh Holliday. OSU has overcome deficits to win 61 games in Holliday's three seasons, notching 28 comeback wins a year ago, 18 such triumphs in 2013 and 15 comeback wins this season.

Big 12's Best
Oklahoma State's 126 wins since 2013 are the most in the Big 12 Conference during that span, six more than the next highest team (TCU).

Awards Show
Oklahoma State had 10 players earn All-Big 12 Conference recognition in 2015, highlighted by Big 12 Pitcher of the Year Michael Freeman. The senior southpaw became the second Cowboy named the league's top pitcher, joining Andrew Heaney (2012).

Joining Freeman on the All-BIg 12 First Team were catcher Gage Green and infielder Donnie Walton, both of whom repeated as first-team performers.

The Cowboys had three players named to the All-Big 12 Second Team as Tim Arakawa earned that honor for the second consecutive year while outfielders Corey Hassel and Ryan Sluder earned all-conference plaudits for the first time in their careers.

Earning All-Big 12 honorable mention accolades were first baseman Dustin Williams and pitchers Trey Cobb and Remey Reed, while Jacob Chappell was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team.

Coming Up Clutch
OSU is hitting .301 (201-for-668) with runners in scoring position this season, and of the Cowboys' 329 RBIs, 141 of those (43 percent) have come with two outs.

Ball Four, Take Your Base
OSU ranked seventh out of nine Big 12 teams in batting average (.275) last season, but the Cowboys led the league with a .385 on-base percentage. The reason? OSU topped the conference and ranked second nationally with 324 walks, 36 more than the next-highest Big 12 team.

The Cowboys sport a Big 12-best .381 on-base percentage this season --15 points higher than the next highest league team -- and rank 17th nationally with 268 walks, 38 more than the next closest Big 12 club.

Small Ball
OSU has smashed program records for sacrifice bunts each of the last two years. A year ago, the Cowboys were third nationally with 88 sacrifice bunts, which trumped the 2013 team's 74 sac bunts to set a program record. Donnie Walton ranked fourth in the NCAA in 2014 with 22 sac bunts, while Gage Green tallied 11.

OSU ranks fifth nationally with 68 sac bunts this season, with Green's 18 leading the Cowboys.

The Pen Is Mighty
OSU's bullpen was the strength of its pitching staff in 2014 as Cowboy relievers combined to go 31-2 with 21 saves in 187 relief appearances. The bullpen racked up 286 strikeouts in 322.0 innings of relief and allowed only 87 earned runs (for a 2.43 ERA).

That trend has continued in 2015 as 13 relievers have combined for 159 appearances, and the OSU bullpen is 16-7 with eight saves, a 2.79 ERA and 206 strikeouts in 222.1 innings.

Strong-Armed
In three seasons under the direction of coach Rob Walton, OSU's pitching staff has turned in some impressive numbers.

In 2013, the Cowboys' 3.04 team ERA was the lowest by an OSU pitching staff since 1973. They followed that last season by ranking second in the Big 12 in strikeouts (479) and saves (21), and in the Cowboys' 24 conference games, the staff recorded a league-best 2.43 ERA with Big 12 opponents only hitting .232 against them.

OSU recorded seven shutouts in both 2013 and 2014, marking just the fourth and fifth times in program history the Cowboys had reached that mark. In the 26 seasons prior to 2013, the program had reached seven shutouts only once.

Over the last three seasons, OSU has also had a pitcher drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft (Jason Hursh in 2013), a hurler earn consensus All-America honors (Brendan McCurry in 2014) and an ace named Big 12 Conference Pitcher of the Year (Michael Freeman in 2015).

The Cowboys return eight pitchers in 2015 who combined for 30 of OSU's 48 wins a year ago. Of those eight, four turned in an ERA of 3.00 or less.

Through 55 games in 2015, OSU owns a 2.84 team ERA, the ninth-lowest in the NCAA. In 22 conference games, the Cowboys' pitching staff compiled a league-best 2.50 ERA and opponents hit just .230 against them.

Thievery
Oklahoma State ranks second in the Big 12 and 35th nationally with 83 stolen bases. Three Cowboys -- Gage Green, Conor Costello and Corey Hassel -- rank in the top 10 in the league in steals, with Green's 18 third in the conference.

OSU has not recorded 100 stolen bases in a season since 1999 (117), and Green is vying to become the first Cowboy to record 20 steals in back-to-back seasons since Billy Gasparino in 1997-98.

Versatile, Dependable, Productive
All those adjectives can be used to describe Cowboy senior Gage Green. A year ago, the Texan led OSU with a .310 batting average and 20 stolen bases while turning in a .392 on-base percentage and recording 24 multi-hit games. He also ranked in the top 10 in the Big 12 with 74 hits.

And it's a safe bet that Green is one of a very few collegiate players -- and likely the only one -- splitting time between catcher and the outfield. Of his 62 starts during his junior season, 25 were behind the plate, 23 were in center field and 14 came in left field. He was named to the All-Big 12 First Team as a catcher.

Green has continued his musical chairs of positions in 2015, starting 26 games at catcher, 24 in left field, four in center field and one in right field. He is hitting .284 with five homers and 29 RBIs while leading the Cowboys with 18 stolen bases. He ranks in the top 10 in the Big 12 in stolen bases, triples (3) and runs (40) and is fourth nationally with 18 sacrifice bunts.

The only player on OSU's roster to start and play all 55 games this season, Green has played in 206 games in his Cowboy career, just four shy of cracking the top 10 on the program's all-time list.

For the second-straight year, Green was named to the All-Big 12 First Team as a catcher in 2015.

Hawaiian Punch
Tim Arakawa proved to be quite a clutch hitter in his first season in a Cowboy uniform in 2014, and that ability resulted in 13 multi-RBI games and 44 RBIs overall for the Honolulu native, helping him earn All-Big 12 Second Team honors.

Arakawa put the Cowboys ahead on the scoreboard with RBIs 16 times last year, and on eight of those occasions, he either drove in what proved to be the winning runs or were walk-off runs. On three other occasions, he collected game-tying RBIs in contests that OSU went on to win.

Arakawa also finished the season ranked second in the Big 12 and 11th nationally in walks (47).

In 2015, Arakawa has continued his production at the plate. He hit safely in OSU's first 13 games and is hitting .291 with 35 RBIs and 11 multi-RBI games, and he was named to the All-Big 12 Second Team for the second-straight year.

Friday Night Lights
Jon Perrin returns to the Cowboy pitching rotation for his senior season despite being a 33rd-round pick of the Detroit Tigers last June, and his return helps bolster the OSU staff.

Perrin started his junior season in the Cowboy bullpen, but in mid-March he made his first start against UTPA. The right-hander started every Friday the rest of the way, and the move to the weekend paid big dividends.

After a no-decision against UTPA, Perrin took losses against Baylor and TCU despite solid outings. However, in his next three starts, he went 3-0 and allowed just one run in 21.1 innings.

A native of Olathe, Kan., Perrin dominated both Big 12 teams from his home state, recording his first-career shutout in a nine-strikeout performance vs. Kansas and topping that with a 10-strikeout shutout of Kansas State.

On the season, Perrin, who was named to the All-Big 12 First Team, was 8-5 with a 2.38 ERA, which ranked as the fourth lowest in the Big 12. He also ranked in the top 10 in the conference in six other categories: wins, shutouts (2), complete games (2), innings pitched (102.0), strikeouts (81) and opponent batting average (.249).

In 15 starts this season, Perrin is 6-4 with a 4.29 ERA, and opponents are hitting .253 against him.

Making A Sacrifice
Donnie Walton has rewritten the OSU record books for sacrifice bunting. As a freshman in 2013, he set the program's single-season record with 18, and he broke that a year ago with 22. The 40 sac bunts in only two seasons vaulted him to the top of OSU's career chart, besting the previous mark of Fred Ocasio, who finished his career in 1994 with 36.

Walton has 10 sac bunts in 36 games this season, bringing his career total to 50.

Big Mike
Mike Freeman is having a breakout senior season for the Cowboys.

Named the 2015 Big 12 Conference Pitcher of the Year, the 6-foot-8 southpaw solidified a spot in OSU's weekend rotation and in 14 starts is 10-2 with a 1.05 ERA. He leads the Big 12 with 102.2 innings pitched, four complete games and a .183 opponent batting average and ranks second in wins, ERA and strikeouts (92). Following his first start of the season at Arizona State (Feb. 15), he has allowed just eight earned runs in 93.0 innings (0.77 ERA) over his last 13 starts, and he ranks fourth nationally in ERA.

In Big 12 play, Freeman was 5-2 with three complete games and a 0.80 ERA in seven starts and recorded 49 strikeouts in 56 innings. In his only losses, he allowed just one earned run combined as the Cowboys lost those games 3-2 and 2-1.

Freeman tied a record by capturing Big 12 Pitcher of the Week honors four times this season -- March 2, 23 and 30 and April 27 -- to become one of only three pitchers in Big 12 history to achieve that feat (West Virginia's Harrison Musgrave in 2013 and Texas A&M's Ryan Rupe in 1998).

Freeman's first weekly honor came following his performance in a win over Western Illinois in which he recorded a career-high 10 strikeouts in eight innings of work. In that contest, he was dominant throughout and nearly unhittable as he retired 23-straight hitters after WIU reached on an error to lead off the game and did not give up a hit through 7 2/3 innings.

The big lefty turned in an even better performance at TCU, tossing his first-career complete game in the series finale against the top-ranked Horned Frogs and leading the Cowboys to a series win as he racked up nine strikeouts and allowed only one earned run in OSU's 7-2 victory.

Freeman continued his dominance on the mound in a series-clinching win over Kansas State as he went 8 1/3 innings without allowing a hit before surrendering a pair of singles in the ninth and became the first Cowboy pitcher since All-American Andrew Heaney in 2012 to toss back-to-back complete games.

In a win at No. 18 Texas Tech, Freeman matched a career high with 10 Ks and did not surrender an earned run in eight innings of work. He did not allow a hit for the first 5 1/3 innings and at one point retired 12-straight Red Raiders.

5-3, 6-3, 4-3, 3U, 1-3
To say Michael Freeman is a ground ball pitcher is like saying grass is green and the sky is blue. Of Freeman's non-strikeout outs this season, 160 have come via ground ball and only 40 via fly out, and he has induced 11 ground ball double plays. Factor in his 92 strikeouts, and 86 percent of Freeman's outs have come via ground ball or strikeout.

Back In The Saddle
A wrist injury kept Donnie Walton out of the OSU lineup for most of the first half of the season as the Cowboys' All-Big 12 First Team shortstop played in just five of the Pokes first 24 games in 2015.

Walton started and played the first 7 1/2 innings of OSU's season opener at Arizona State on Feb. 13, then was used briefly as a pinch runner in the eighth inning the following day before going on the shelf.

On Feb. 24, Walton underwent surgery to remove the hamate bone in his right wrist. After missing 18 games, Walton returned to action in the opener at TCU on March 20 when he was inserted into the game at shortstop in the eighth inning. In Sunday's game against the Frogs, he returned to the starting lineup, filling in at second base for an injured Tim Arakawa.

Walton returned to the starting lineup at shortstop for the K-State series and was 4-for-10 with three RBIs. He is hitting .346 with four homers and 28 RBIs in 36 games on the year.

Despite missing a month of the season, Walton earned All-Big 12 First Team honors for the second consecutive year. As a freshman, he was an honorable mention all-conference performer.

Short Hops
OSU is 13-7 against ranked teams this season ... OSU checks in at No. 11 in the latest official NCAA RPI ... The Cowboys had five scheduled games canceled due to weather in 2015 ... OSU's strength of schedule ranks sixth nationally ... The Cowboys have wins against three NCAA Championship national seeds this season -- Illinois, TCU (2) and Missouri State ... OSU has played more road/neutral games (31) than it has home games (24) in 2015 ... Of the Cowboys' 18 losses this season, 12 have been by two runs or less.

Hometown Hero
Corey Hassel played in 86 games in his first two seasons at OSU, but the Stillwater native is having a breakout junior campaign for his hometown Cowboys in 2015.

Used mostly as a late-game defensive replacement and pinch runner in 2013 and 2014, Hassel has become a regular starter in the outfield and is tied for the team lead with a .305 batting average. In Big 12 play, Hassel hit .344 with two home runs and 18 RBIs and led OSU in numerous offensive categories, including RBIs, hits (31) and doubles (6).

Named to the All-Big 12 Second Team, Hassel was the hero in OSU's series-opening win over Texas as he delivered a three-run, walk-off home run in the bottom of the 18th inning and also earned his first-career win on the mound with three strikeouts in three scoreless innings.

Sluder's Sophomore Surge
Another breakout star for the Cowboys in 2015 is outfielder Ryan Sluder, who hit .284 with 67 at-bats in 35 games as a freshman a year ago but blossomed into an All-Big 12 Second Team performer in 2015.

This season, Sluder leads OSU with a .305 batting average, 14 doubles and six homers in 47 games (41 starts), and he went on a tear in Big 12 Conference play. In league games, he led OSU with a .403 average -- the highest in the league in Big 12 games -- to go along with five homers, 10 RBIs and a .710 slugging percentage.

Sluder ranks in the top 10 in the Big 12 in doubles and slugging percentage (.517).

Workhorse
Trey Cobb has become the Cowboys' go-to pitcher out of the bullpen in 2015. His team-high 29 appearances are tied for the seventh most in a single season in OSU history, and the sophomore right-hander has compiled a 4-1 record and two saves to go along with a 2.44 ERA. In 55.1 innings -- all in relief -- Cobb has 49 strikeouts, and opponents are hitting just .220 against him.

Cobb has become more dominant as the season has progressed. In his last nine outings, he's allowed only one run in 20.1 innings (0.45 ERA) and recorded 20 strikeouts.

An honorable mention All-Big 12 pick, Cobb baffled opposing hitters at the conference tournament last week en route to being named to the all-tournament team. He worked five perfect innings against West Virginia in the tourney opener, striking out five to earn the win and not allowing a ball to be hit out of the infield. He also worked three scoreless frames in the title game against Texas.

Swinging A Hot Bat
Donnie Walton brings an eight-game hitting streak into NCAA Regional play, and the junior shortstop is hitting .455 (15-for-33) with two home runs, 11 RBIs and a .727 slugging percentage during that span. He has collected multiple-RBI efforts in five of the games, including tying a career high with three against Kansas State.

In four games at last week's Big 12 Baseball Championship in his hometown of Tulsa, the switch-hitter went 9-for-16 (.563) with a double, homer and five RBIs.

Oklahoma State University Athletics

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