Oklahoma baseball: Sooners sweep season-opening series
By Chip Rouse
The 2019 Oklahoma baseball season got underway this past weekend, and the Sooners delivered a three-game series sweep at home over Cal Poly.
In the season opener on Friday, the Sooners efficiently converted four hits into four runs and a 4-1 victory. The game was played in extreme weather conditions. At first pitch, the temperature hovered around 30 degrees with a 20-mile-per-hour wind.
Oklahoma broke a 1-1 tie, scoring two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning without a hit. Two walks, a hit batter, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly resulted in a pair of unearned runs.
In the second game of the weekend series at L. Dale Mitchell Park, the Sooners again broke open a 1-1 tie in the early innings, scoring seven runs in the middle 4th, 5th and 6th innings, and behind the solid pitching of junior starter Nathan Wiles defeated the Mustangs of Cal Poly for a second straight day, 9-3. Wiles went seven innings, allowing two earned runs on nine hits and was credited with the win.
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Nine OU hitters scattered 11 hits, with left fielder Jordan Vujovich and designated hitter Justin Mitchell collected two apiece.
The series finale on Sunday also went Oklahoma’s way. The Sooners broke up a close game with a three-run eighth inning on the way to a 5-2 win. Southpaw sophomore Levi Prater was the winning pitcher, allowing one run and three hits in 6 1/3 innings. Wyatt Olds came on in the seventh inning and part of the eighth in relief and junior Jason Ruffcorn got the final four outs and earned the save.
The weekend sweep allowed the Sooners to begin the season 3-0, the first time they have done that since 2013.
OU will play Dallas Baptist on Wednesday in a game that was rescheduled from Tuesday because of predicted bad weather. Next weekend the Sooners head west for the Tony Gwynn Classic in San Diego, where they will play single games against San Diego, San Diego State and Cal State Fullerton.