Oklahoma baseball: Sooners sweep Red River rivals, move out of Big 12 cellar

It was David vs. Goliath in Austin, Texas, this weekend, and David — a.k.a. Oklahoma baseball — prevailed over Goliath, represented in this story by Big 12 leader and top 25-ranked Texas.

Not once, not twice, but three times the unsung Sooners, mired in the Big 12 cellar heading into the Texas series, came away with wins, sweeping the series over the heavily favored Longhorns.

This weekend couldn’t have been any sweeter for OU head coach Skip Johnson, a former Texas assistant, and his Oklahoma squad, which has had a very up and down season through now 41 games.

To underscore how improbable the Sooners three-game series sweep over the Longhorns was, Texas had dominated the all-time baseball series with its Red River rivals from the Sooner State (156-65) and that difference was even more pronounced when the two teams played in Austin. Moreover, Texas came into the weekend series with a Big 12-best 21-4 record at home this season, while Oklahoma had been just 1-5 in Big 12 road games in 2023.

Oklahoma won the series opener on Friday 2-1 in a pitcher’s dual between the two aces of both staffs, Braxton Douthit of OU and Texas’ Lucas Gordon, the Big 12 ERA leader. Douthit worked six innings and Gordon seven innings. The score was tied 1-1 in the eighth, when Jackson Nicklaus drew a bases loaded walk from UT reliever David Shaw, scoring Anthony Mackenzie from third base with what proved to be the winning run.

The two teams played a doubleheader on Saturday, with Sunday’s scheduled series finale moved to Saturday because of the expectation of inclement weather on Sunday.

Oklahoma exploded for five runs in the second and three more in the third inning in Game 1 on Saturday, jumping out in front 8-0 off of three Texas pitchers before the Longhorns came to bat in the bottom half of the third. That would seem to be a safe enough margin in most instances, but then this was last-place Oklahoma taking on Big 12-leading Texas, and there was still a long way to go in the game.

Texas began chipping away at the eight-run deficit, scoring single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings followed by a three-spot in the sixth, and just like that the Sooners’ lead was down to two runs, 8-6. Would OU, with the second-worst pitching staff in the Big 12, be able to hold off the Longhorns’ late charge?

Mackenzie, who had three hits and three RBI in the first game on Saturday, singled home Rocco Garza-Gongora, who had walked and stole second to open up the top half of the eighth, with OU’s ninth run of the afternoon, and OU left-handed reliever Carter Campbell did the rest, shutting down the Texas bats over the final 3.1 innings, allowing just one hit and striking out three to earn the save, his first of the season. Redshirt senior Braden Cunningham, who started the game for Oklahoma, got the win, his third of the season without a loss, and Gordon took the loss for the Longhorns, his first of the season after four wins.

In the second game of the Saturday doubleheader, junior shortstop Dakota Harris got three hits and right fielder Bryce Madron hit his team-leading eighth home run of the season, a three-run blast to right field, as the Sooners again jumped on Texas in the first two innings, scoring three in the first and two in the second to take an early 5-1 lead.

The Longhorns again chipped away at the early Oklahoma lead, but three passed balls led to an OU insurance run in the seventh, and the Sooners held on for a 6-4 victory and the series sweep.

James Hitt (3-0) was the winning pitcher for OU in the nightcap, going the first five innings and allowing four runs on five hits with three strikeouts and two walks. The starting pitching was outstanding for the Sooners in this series, but it was the OU bullpen that ultimately brought home the bacon. Sooner relievers worked 11.1 innings over the two days, giving up three runs on seven hits and striking out seven.

Oklahoma improved to 22-19 on the season and moved into seventh place in the conference standings with a more respectable 7-8 record, passing Texas Tech (6-12) and Kansas (5-9), the Sooners’ Big 12 opponent next weekend. Texas dropped out of first place, with an 8-7 league mark, and fell all the way to fourth in the conference standings.

The series sweep over Texas was the first ever by an Oklahoma on the road in Austin .