Oklahoma Baseball: Sooners Take Two of Three at West Virginia

Senior right fielder Ben Hollas singled to left field driving in Steele Walker in the top of the 10th inning with what proved to be the winning run in a 7-4 Oklahoma baseball win over West Virginia on Sunday.

The Sunday victory at West Virginia followed a come-from-behind 3-1 win the day before and earned the Sooners their third series win in Big 12 play. Oklahoma reached the 30-win level with Sunday’s win, becoming the fourth Big 12 team to do so this season.

The Sooners dropped the opening game in the weekend series 4-2. The game, which began on Friday night, was suspended after five innings because of lightning in the area, with Oklahoma leading 2-1. The game was continued on Saturday, with West Virginia pushing across two runs in the home half of the sixth and an insurance run in the eighth to claim the victory.

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By winning the final two games in the series, Oklahoma posted its first back-to-back victories since April 2 and 3, when it defeated Texas Tech and Oral Roberts in consecutive games. The Sooners stood at 26-6 overall after the win over ORU. Since then, however, they have gone 4-10, including a seven-game losing streak.

Here’s what you need to know about Oklahoma baseball over the weekend:

• In the second game of the West Virginia series, OU’s Kyle Tyler became the first Sooner pitcher to pitch a perfect first inning since way back on April 11 against Oral Roberts.
• Junior second baseman Kyle Mendenhall matched his career high with three runs batted in in OU’s 3-1 win on Saturday.
• Senior center fielder Ben Hollas wielded at hot bat over the weekend, going 5 for 12 in the three games at West Virginia (a .416 average), including knocking in the winning run on Sunday.
• The series win improved the OU record to 30-16 for the season and 8-7 in the Big 12. The Sooners are in fourth place in the conference standing, a game and a half back of West Virginia, with two weekends remaining in the regular season.
• Senior first baseman Austin O’Brien hit his fifth home run of the season on Sunday and sophomore designated hitter Brylie Ware clubbed his first, both solo shots.
• OU now owns a one-game edge in the all-time series against West Virginia: 10-9 all-time; 8-7 in the Big 12.
• Oklahoma is 8-5 this season in games decided by two runs or less.
• The Sooners close out the regular season with three games at Kansas State (24-20, 4-11) this weekend and a Bedlam showdown with Oklahoma State (23-18. 6-11) the following week. The Cowboys and Wildcats are currently the bottom two teams in the league standings.