Its still early in the season but you'll be hard pressed to find a better play than the diving catch junior outfielder Taylor Alspaugh made against Seton Hall last Saturday. The effort robbed the Pirates of a base hit and made for a highlight reel moment for the team.
"I thought the ball was going to be an infield pop-up and then it kept going," Alspaugh said. "I just happened, at the last second to make the call. I attribute it more to luck than skill right now. It was a good play on Hector's (Lorenzana) part because if he dives and we collide then we're not talking about this because I might be in the hospital or something like that. All the way around we had good communication and that's what was most important on that play."
Alspaugh played sparingly last season, making just 21 appearances. He only started nine games, with eight of those coming in the post-season. Even in limited innings though he showed a knack for making plays in the outfield by sporting a perfect 1.000 percentage for the season with 24 putouts.
When he's not diving to catch the ball in the outfield he's blasting the ball into it. Alspaugh is batting .500 through Oklahoma's first four games (7/14), with 3 RBI and a total of five runs scored. He's also drawn two walks on the year to raise his on base percentage to .529 on the year. However, his best work from the plate has come when he's had runners on base ahead of him. Alspaugh has a slugging percentage of .714 which trails only Hunter Haley for the team lead.
The Sooners currently lead the Big XII in just about every batting category. They have a team batting average of .346 with 44 runs scored off 53 hits. Taylor Alspaugh has been a huge contributing factor to those numbers but you can't help think that it'll be the diving catch in game two that people will be talking about for a while.
