Surprise Player Drives UCLA's Early Offense

"I think there's some maturity things, some swing decisions, and he was clearly just young," head coach John Savage told D1Baseball.com in an interview earlier this week. "He clearly has power. He's getting into his power. [Assistant coach] Bryant [Ward]'s done a great job with him, trying to seek out strikes and take balls, the same thing that I'm sure Texas did. It's not a magic formula by no means, but we're probably getting the player at the right time of his career."

Will Gasparino's Hot Start at UCLA

Gasparino was an All-SEC defender at Texas, but he wasn't a big-time contributor at the plate. He hit just .247 for the Longhorns over two seasons with a somewhat low on-base percentage (OBP) and a pretty average slugging percentage, launching 25 home runs and collecting 96 RBIs in total.

He had a tough debut series for UCLA against UC-San Diego at the plate, collecting just two hits in 10 at-bats, although one was a home run. But since then, he's been nearly unstoppable. Gasparino is blowing his Texas numbers out of the water across the board, leading the nation with eight home runs, leading the team in RBIs and slugging percentage, and remaining among its leaders in OPS (on-base plus slugging), OBP, hits, and batting average.

The junior followed the opening series with a two-home-run day against Tulane and a 5-for-11 showing with three homers and nine RBIs in a three-game series against No. 8 TCU.

"We're just trying to build all of those things into his game," Savage added. "Clearly, he's off to a really hot start, and he's playing really good defense. So far, so good, and this will be a great test for him this weekend."

Passing the Test

If this weekend is the ultimate test in the regular season, as it should be with three Top 25 teams on the schedule, Gasparino passed the first leg with flying colors, ambushing No. 20 Tennessee with two solo home runs, his third multi-home run game and fifth multi-RBI game of the season. Two of the three multi-homer games have now come against ranked teams (TCU and Tennessee).

There are still two more big tests ahead of him against No. 23 Texas A&M and No. 4 Mississippi State, but Will Gasparino has been a pleasant surprise on offense so far. If he can continue to provide a spark consistently, it'll make the No.1 team even more potent once it figures everything out.

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