Oklahoma baseball capped off its opening weekend of the season with a 6-1 victory over Michigan on Sunday at the State Farm College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas.
With the win over Michigan, the Sooners won two of three at the State Farm tournament held at Globe Life Park, home of the MLB Texas Rangers. OU opened the weekend and the 2022 season with a 3-0 shutout over Auburn. The Sooner fell 14-4 to No. 15 Arizona on Saturday.
Sophomore third baseman Peyton Graham, a preseason All-American candidate, paced the Sooners in the season-opening win over Auburn. Graham stroked a two-run home run in the seventh inning to break up a scoreless game and the Sooners added a single run in the eighth to close out the win.
A quartet of OU pitchers held the Auburn bats to just three hits in the game. Freshman Colton Sundloff got the win for the Sooners in relief of starting pitcher Jake Bennett, who went the first 5.0 innings, allowing one hit and no runs and striking out two. Jaret Godman was credited with the save.
Things didn’t go as well for the Sooners against Arizona on Saturday. Arizona broke up a scoreless game with a five-run third inning off of OU starter David Sandlin. Oklahoma scored a couple of runs in the top half of the fourth and another run in the fifth to cut into the Arizona lead at 5-3, but the Wildcats added two more runs in their half of the fifth and erupted for seven runs in the seventh inning to put the game away.
Senior center fielder Tanner Tredaway and sophomore right fielder Trent Brown drove in a pair of runs apiece for the Sooners and Graham and designated hitter Blake Robertson had two hits each.
Sandlin took the loss for the Sooners, giving up six runs on eight hits with four strikeouts over 4.1 innings.
Brown drove in OU’s first two runs with a double in the second inning, and Tredaway drove in another run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth, giving the Sooners a 3-1 lead. Oklahoma added its final three runs on a base-clearing throwing error in the eighth inning.
The Sooners open their home season, weather permitting, on Tuesday against Wichita State before hosting Northwestern State (Louisiana) for a three-game weekend series.