Oklahoma baseball sweeps Baylor, wins first Big 12 regular-season championship

No. 18 Oklahoma baseball completed a three-game sweep of Baylor over the weekend and in the process clinched no worse than a share of the Big 12 regular-season championship.

On the same day that OU won its eighth Big 12 Softball Tournament title in Oklahoma City, their male counterparts captured their first regular-season crown in baseball back home in Norman.

The Sooners defeated Baylor 9-1 and 19-7, winning both games of a Saturday doubleheader to complete their sixth series sweep of a Big 12 opponent this season and improve their conference record to 21-6 and 32-7 overall.

The last time an Oklahoma team won as many as 20 conference games in a season was in 2000. Their 21 league wins is tied for the most in program history. That was achieved in 1994, as a member of the Big Eight. in the same season the Sooners won their second and most recent national championship

By completing the sweep over Baylor in the 2024 regular-season home finale at L. Dale Mitchell Park, Oklahoma claimed its first Big 12 regular-season championship and first conference title in nearly three decades. OU won its last regular-season conference crown in 1995, two years before the
Big 12 was officially formed. The Sooners were picked to finish sixth in this year's Big 12 Baseball Preseason Poll.

"The accomplishment belongs to the players," head coach Skip Johnson said in his postgame press conference after Saturday's doubleheader. "You play one pitch at a time, that's our mantra."

"You play one pitch at a time and one game at a time, and that's what we have to continue to do.""

- OU head coach Skip Johnson

The Oklahoma offense unloaded on Baylor pitching over the weekend, scoring 47 runs to just 15 by the visiting Bears. Two of the Sooner wins ended in identical scores of 19-7. The top of the OU lineup -- John Spikerman, Bryce Madron and Easton Carmichael -- had huge weekend performances at the plate. Sooner starters Braden Davis and Kyson Witherspoon worked Game 1 and 2 for OU and picked up their seventh and sixth wins of the season, respectively.

Spikerman was 9 of 14 (.643) for the three games with 10 runs driven in and nine runs scored. Madron collected five hits in 12 at bats and 11 RBI, including an inside-the-park grand slam. Carmichael also had five hits and a pair of five-RBI games. The Sooners lead the Big 12 with a team batting average of .311.

Oklahoma has won six Big 12 games in a row and seven of the last 10 games.

The Sooners still have four games remaining in the regular season. They will play Xavier in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Tuesday and begin a three-game series against Cincinnati on Thursday to bring the regular season to an end. A win against Cincinnati will give Oklahoma the outright Big 12 title.