While it might not be befitting in baseball, it seemed appropriate enough on a frigid, blustery Sunday that Kansas University built a snowman to upend Oklahoma.

KU collected six hits and took advantage of two OU miscues in an eight-run second and rolled to a 10-4 victory over the Sooners at Hoglund Ballpark.

“It was unexpected,” said KU outfielder Jesse Gremminger, who singled, homered and scored twice in the decisive inning. “We controlled the game, and that’s something we hadn’t been able to do. Scoring that snowman was huge.”

The Sooners, who had a nine-game winning streak snapped and fell to 26-15 overall, 11-7 Big 12, helped. First, Oklahoma let Gremminger’s popup drop between three players for a single.

One out later, Brandon O’Neal boarded after striking out and reaching first on a wild pitch.

“It could have been 1-2-3,” Gremminger said. “It would have been 1-2-3 if they had made the plays.”

After a Brett Kappelmann double, a Brenton Del Chiaro walk, a Casey Spanish strikeout and three straight singles, Gremminger drilled a three-run homer to left-center that the Sooners disputed. The shot hit the light standard just above the fence and bounced back into play.

“We scored a lot of runs that inning,” Gremminger said. “I guess they wanted it to be in. I guess it could have gone either way. The umpires might have made a mistake and they were just trying to talk them into it. But I knew it was a home run.”

Regardless, KU coach Bobby Randall was tickled the Jayhawks (21-20, 7-14) took advantage of the Sooners’ misplays.

“They gave us five outs that inning and we scored eight,” he said. “But you have to give Rusty and our defense some credit. Once we got the lead, we didn’t give them much of a chance.”

Rusty Philbrick (4-4) shook off a two-run first. He surrendered all four runs just three were earned off six hits over 7 1/3 innings.

“Down 2-0, you’re just trying to stay in the ball game,” Philbrick said. “When we went ahead, all you gotta do is keep the ball on the ground and let the defense take over. After scoring eight runs, that gave me a warmup boost. After the second inning, I started to feel better.”

So did Randall, even if he was wary of the Sooners’ potent offense.

“I don’t think worried is the right term,” he said, “but I was aware that early lead can go away fast. That’s a good offensive team averaging 10 runs a game.”

Jeff Davis relieved Philbrick and allowed two hits over 1 2/3 scoreless innings.

Michael Bradbury (3-1) took the loss. He allowed nine runs off seven hits over three-plus innings.

“It’s no secret that left-hander didn’t do much to fool us,” Randall said. “But that’s a great baseball team. We got those runs early and I thought, ‘Let’s not get into one of those hang-on games.'”

Kansas will travel to Missouri for a nonconference game Tuesday, then play host to Texas Tech next weekend.

Andrew Hartsock’s phone number is 832-7216. His e-mail address is ahartsock@ljworld.com.