Two Sooners selected to 2013 preseason baseball All-America Team

Two aces of the Oklahoma starting pitching rotation will begin the new season as 2013 Louisville Slugger preseason All-America Second Team selections.

Junior Right-handed starters Dillon Overton and Jonathan Gray return from last season's 42-25 Oklahoma baseball squad to head the Sooners' rotation when the 2013 season starts the weekend of Feb. 15. The Sooners finished third in the Big 12 a year ago and lost in the NCAA Tourament Super Regionals round at Virginia.

Overton was 6-3 in 2012 with an ERA of 3.15 in 22 games for the Sooners. He was second in the Big 12 in strikeouts (126) and innings pitched (122.6). Gray recorded eight wins last season, tied for sixth most in the conference. He started all 18 games in which he appeared in 2012 and posted a 3.16 ERA in 102.8 innings.

Two players from Texas, third-baseman Erich Weiss and left-handed reliever Casey Knebel, one of the best in the country, also were named to the Louisville Slugger preseason All-America Second Team. Two TCU pitchers, Preston Morrison and Andrew Mitchell, both right-handed starters, were selected to the third team. This will be TCU first baseball season as a new member of the Big 12.

All nine Big 12 schools that participate in baseball (Iowa State is the lone conference team that does not play baseball) open their 2013 seasons the weekend of Feb. 15. Oklahoma starts out at home in a four-game series with Hofstra of the Colonial Athletic Association.

The Sooners return 14 players from last year's team, including six seniors.

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