Hurler returns to starting spot - Tulsa World (4-10-2007)

[ORUTerry]

Hurler returns to starting spot

Tulsa World Link

by JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Writer

4/10/2007

Oral Roberts pitcher Chris Ashman has been to the bottom. And he's been to the top.

This year, he's been to both places in the same season.

Ashman appears to be back on top after his complete-game victory Sunday at Long Beach State.

The senior from Hemet, Calif., no doubt felt at home against the Dirtbags. Hemet is 70 miles due east of Long Beach as the condor flies.

Ashman gave up two runs on five hits with five strikeouts and earned his third Mid-Continent Conference pitcher of the week honor. It was his first complete game of the season, the third of his career.

Ashman, last year's Mid-Con pitcher of the year after a season spent as an emergency pinch-runner, started 2007 as the Golden Eagles' ace. But he didn't start this season well, giving up seven runs on seven hits and five walks at Texas and eventually losing his spot in the starting rotation for a spot in the bullpen.

Even that didn't help. In his third appearance out of the pen, he faced seven batters, gave up five hits and got tagged for an eighth-inning grand slam against Penn State.

But Ashman has slowly returned to form. His last three outings -- all starts -- have been good. He went 7 1/3 innings in a loss at Cal, in which he allowed three earned runs, struck out eight and walked zero. He went 7 2/3 in a win over Bethune Cookman, allowing just two earned runs. And he gave up just one earned run at Long Beach.

In his last three starts, Ashman is 2-1 with a 2.25 ERA.

Aggie hero: Texas A&M senior Parker Dalton was a career .254 hitter with 34 RBIs in his first three seasons in College Station. But this season, Dalton leads the Aggies and ranks among the Big 12's best hitters with a .423 average, and has 22 RBIs hitting 9-hole.

What's the secret? Perseverance and character.

Dalton was named Big 12 Male Sportsperson of the Year last year for his initiative in integrating six displaced Tulane athletic teams to Texas A&M's campus after the New Orleans school's facilities were ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

In the summer of 2006, Dalton found he had a malignant melanoma on his back and had to have surgery to remove the cancerous tumor, as well as two lymph nodes in the area. Dalton also had shoulder surgery in the off-season.

Game of the week: It's No. 23 Oklahoma at No. 11 Wichita State, hands down.

Kudos to the men at the center of this storm -- Shockers coach Gene Stephenson and Sooners skipper Sunny Golloway -- for taking the high road ever since the day in 2005 that Stephenson took the job at OU, then changed his mind and went back to Wichita later that day. The end of that week, Golloway was introduced as the Sooners' man.

Sooner State slide: Wichita State was triumphant in Stephenson's return to Norman last year, but the Shockers have since lost their last six in the state of Oklahoma: in 2006, a loss at Oral Roberts, a loss at Oklahoma State, a pair of NCAA Tournament games in Norman against the Sooners, and in '07, a February 28 game at OU and last week, for the third year in a row, at ORU.

"That's coincidence. Poor luck. Whatever," said ORU coach Rob Walton. "But he's a hall of famer. Lot of respect.

"In my mind, I think Gene's probably the best coach in the country over a long period of time."