Oklahoma baseball: Sooners win a 2nd straight elimination game
By Chip Rouse
Left for dead after losing in its opening game, the Oklahoma baseball team remains breathing after a second-straight elimination-game victory in the Big 12 Championship.
Without the services of two of their key players, the Sooners have staved off elimination with consecutive victories over top-seed Texas on Thursday and No. 8 Kansas on Friday. Oklahoma avenged a pair of losses last weekend to Kansas with a 4-2 win Friday afternoon at Chicksaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.
With junior outfielder Steele Walker and redshirt sophomore center fielder Kyler Murray out of the lineup nursing injuries, several unsung heroes stepped up for Oklahoma. Senior second baseman Kyle Mendenhall had two hits and drove in a pair of runs, and freshman catcher Justin Mitchell contributed a triple and a single and scored twice in contributing to the OU victory, number 36 on the season to go with 22 losses.
Meanwhile, junior right-hander Kyle Tyler, making his first start since April 24, held the Jayhawks at bay at the plate, allowing two runs on four hits over six full innings and striking out five.
The first team to lose in this year’s Big 12 Baseball tournament, the Sooners are now one of just four teams remaining in the hunt and, surprisingly are the highest-seeded team, at No, 4, entering the semifinal round on Saturday. Texas, No. 2 Oklahoma State and No. 3 Texas Tech have all been eliminated from the championship.
The Sooners have earned a rematch on Saturday with No. 5 Baylor, the team that handed OU its opening-game defeat to begin the tournament on Thursday.
Here are some of the other numbers that mattered from OU’s 4-2 win on Friday:
3 – Justin Mitchell’s triple for OU in the third inning was his first of his career.
3 – Oklahoma has reached the semifinals in the Big 12 Baseball Championship in three of the last four years.
17 – Sooner pitchers are 17 strikeouts away from breaking the school record for strikeouts in a single season (583).
20-4 – Oklahoma scored three runs in the first inning against Kansas, which proved to be the winning margin. The Sooners are 20-4 this season when they score in the first inning and 27-8 when they are the first team to score.
106 – Sophomore Brandon Zaragoza made his 106th consecutive start at shortstop for the Sooners.