Oklahoma baseball takes two of three from Mississippi State

Tenth-ranked Oklahoma baseball overcame a series-opening loss on Friday with a pair of weekend wins over Mississippi State to win its second straight conference series as a new member of the SEC.

The Sooners fell 2-1 in a pitcher's dual on Friday night at L. Dale Mitchell Park, but came back over the weekend to win a 13-11 slugfest on Saturday and 7-3 in the series finale on Sunday. With the two wins, Oklahoma improved to 20-3 on the season and 4-2 in the conference.

Mississippi State (15-9, 1-5) pushed across a run in the first inning on Friday on two hits and an error to take an early 1-0 lead. That's the way things stood until the seventh inning as Oklahoma pitching ace Kyson Witherspoon and Mississippi State starter Pico Kohn controlled the flow of the game.

The Bulldogs scored a run in the top of the seventh to stretch their advantage to 2-0. The Sooners cut into the lead with a run of their own in the home half of the seventh, but that was all they could muster in a 2-1 Mississippi State win. Witherspoon was charged with the loss, his first of the season to go with five wins.

The second game of the series was a much different affair with 24 runs, 31 combined hits and 11 pitchers (six by Oklahoma and five by Mississippi State) deployed between the two teams.

The Sooners got off to an explosive start on Saturday, scoring five times in their first at bat on five hits and a couple of Mississippi State fielding errors and twice more in the second to go up 7-0. OU added three runs in the third, the big hit a two-run home-run by shortstop Jaxon Willits, his team-leading seventh of the season.

The Bulldogs returned the favor with a five-spot in the third, fueled by a pair of two-run home runs, knocking OU starter Cade Crossland out of the game. They plated more runs in the fifth and one in the sixth, and just like that the game was all knotted up at 10 apiece.

Each team added a run in the seventh, but the Sooners struck twice in the eighth on a two-run go-ahead home-run blast by Dawson Willis. Dylan Crooks, the sixth OU pitcher in the contest, came on the eighth and recorded the final four outs to earn his second win of the season.

The Sooners staked starter Malachi Witherspoon to a 2-0 lead after two innings in Sunday's series finale, but the Bulldogs struck back with three runs in the top of the third to erase the OU advantage and go up 3-2.

Redshirt sophomore Sam Christiansen hit a solo home run in the fifth to tie the game, and the Sooners regained the lead with three runs in the sixth and a singleton in the eighth on a sacrifice bunt by Dylan Crooks to close out the scoring and a 7-3 OU series-clinching victory.

Junior catcher Easton Carmichael led the way offensively for the Sooners on Sunday, going 2-for-4 with a two RBI. Six different OU players had hits in the game, and the Sooners swiped six bases.

Jason Bodin entered the game in relief for Oklahoma in the sixth inning, one of five Sooner pitchers used in the game, and was awarded the win, his second of the season. Crooks worked the final 1.2 innings, retiring all five batters he faced to pick up his SEC-leading seventh save of the season.

The Sooners will play Oral Roberts in Tulsa on Tuesday and travel to Alabama for a three-game weekend series with the 12th-ranked Crimson Tide.

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