Oklahoma baseball rewind: Sooners victims of series sweep at Kansas State
By Chip Rouse
![Rocco Garza-Gongora runs to first as the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) baseball team plays Rider at L. Dale Mitchell Park on Feb. 24, 2023 in Norman, Okla. [Steve Sisney/For The Oklahoman]Ou Practice](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F20c9e1adc3ed0e007be9263765c1ce962250f06b3fedf9fe4153f84ea10ff345.jpg "Rocco Garza-Gongora runs to first as the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) baseball team plays Rider at L. Dale Mitchell Park on Feb. 24, 2023 in Norman, Okla. [Steve Sisney/For The Oklahoman]Ou Practice")
In a few words, it was not a good weekend for Oklahoma baseball.
The Sooners (13-11, 2-4) fell behind early in all three games at Kansas State, and it cost them as the Wildcats completed a three-game sweep over OU. Two of the wins were by one run.
Kansas State (17-8, 4-2) opened the series with a 7-1 win, knocking OU starter Kale Davis out of the game in the fifth inning with a five-run outburst that added to a two-run third inning and was all the Cats needed to finish off the Sooners.
Game two was much the same story. Kansas State scored a single run in the second inning to take a 1-0 advantage. Oklahoma tied the game with a run of its own in the third on a single by John Spikerman that scored Rocco Garza-Gongora, who had doubled right before.
But Kansas State erupted for another five-spot, this time in the fourth inning on three hits, to go up 6-1. The Sooners rallied for three runs in the fifth and a couple more in the sixth to knot the game a 6-6. But a run-scoring double in the bottom half of the sixth after two were out by K-State first baseman Roberto Pena, who accounted for four of the Cats’ runs in the game, proved to be the winning difference.
Spikerman and Garza-Gongora each had two hits on Saturday, as did the Sooners’ Sebastian Orduno, but it was not enough as starter Braxton Douthit suffered his first loss o the season to go with three wins.
The Sooners fell behind early again on Sunday. After Kansas State jumped out in front 3-0 on a pair of second-inning home runs off of Sooner left-handed starter James Hitt, OU struck six times in the top of the fourth on five hits and a pair of walks. That explosion erased the three-run deficit and gave the Sooners a 6-3 advantage, which they stretched to 7-3 with a single run in the seventh.
That’s the way things stood until K-State teed off on Sooner reliever Will Carsten in the home half of the eighth. Carsten had pitched a scoreless sixth and seventh facing the Wildcats in relief of Hitt. But the Cats caught up with him in the eighth and their second time around. Carsten retired the first hitter he faced in the eighth, but before he could get another out, Kansas State collected two walks and three hits and scored four times, tying the game a 7-all.
Then, in the bottom of the ninth, Kansas State loaded the bases and Brady Day laced a single to right field that scored Brendan Jones from third, and the Wildcats had an 8-7 walk-off win and a series sweep. Carter Campbell, who came in to pitch for the Sooners in the ninth, was charged with giving up the winning run and took the loss.
Oklahoma stayed in Kansas for a single game at Wichita State on Tuesday. It’s back home next weekend for a four-game series beginning Thursday hosting Stanford.