Stormin in Norman
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Sunday survival: Sooners stay alive, will meet UConn a 3rd time for Norman Regional championship

By Chip Rouse

Jun 2, 2024; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners infielder Jackson Nicklaus (15) and infielder Isaiah Lane (6) celebrate after scoring runs during the eighth inning of an NCAA Division I Baseball Championship game between the UConn Huskies and the Oklahoma Sooners at L. Dale Mitchell Park. Credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 2, 2024; Norman, OK, USA; Oklahoma Sooners infielder Jackson Nicklaus (15) and infielder Isaiah Lane (6) celebrate after scoring runs during the eighth inning of an NCAA Division I Baseball Championship game between the UConn Huskies and the Oklahoma Sooners at L. Dale Mitchell Park. Credit: Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports / Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports
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Facing the brink of elimination, the Oklahoma Sooner baseball team, the top seed in the Norman Regional, had to win twice on Sunday to force a winner-take-all showdown for the regional championship.

Mission accomplished. Not once but twice...and to fight another day

Following a two-hour weather delay, the Sooners disposed of pesky Duke, the No. 2 seed coming into the Norman Regional, 4-3 on a hot and steamy afternoon on the central plains. OU had little time to celebrate staying alive let alone recover from the season-saving victory before having to take on a UConn team that had beaten the Sooners 24 hours before to put them into their Sunday predicament.

It was a game of pitching attrition for both teams as UConn was playing its third game of the regional and the Sooners were playing their fourth contest and the second that same day.

The Sooners fell behind early 1-0 against Duke in Game 1 on Sunday, but tied the scored and went ahead 3-1 in the second, the big hit a two-run triple by the No. 9 hitter Jason Walk. The Sooners pushed across another tally in the seventh on three singles and a throwing error. That proved to be the winning run as AJ Garcia of Duke rapped a two-run homer to right center that brought the Blue Devils within a run at 4-3.

Reliever Malachi Witherspoon set down the side in order in the ninth to preserve the victory and send OU to a second Sunday showdown game with UConn.

Game 2 didn't start off favorably for Oklahoma, either. UConn leadoff hitter Caleb Shpur greeted Sooner starter Brendan Girton with a home run blast down the left field line. The Huskies scored another run in the first to go up 2-0. OU scored a run in the top half of the second on a single by Scott Mudler that brought Jackson Nicklaus home from second base.

Girton was removed in the second after walking the leadoff hitter. He was replaced on the mound by Jett Lodes, who walked the first batter he faced but struck out the next two before yielding a run-scoring single to Korey Morton that stretched the Huskies' advantage to 3-1.

OU's Michael Snyder tied the game at 3-3 with a two-run homer in the third inning, and that's the way things stayed until the seventh inning, when Mulder singled through the right side, scoring Jaxson Willits. Three batters later, Bryce Madron doubled in a couple of insurance runs to put the Sooners up 6-3. Tyler Minick homered for UConn in the bottom of the eighth to narrow the Oklahoma lead to 6-4, but that's the way things ended as both teams went quietly in the ninth.

That sent up a winner-take-all showdown between the top-seeded Sooners and No. 3 UConn at L. Dale Mitchell Park on Monday night at 8 p.m. CT. The winner will advance to the Tallahassee Regional next weekend to face Florida State.

Five telling takeaways from a Sunday of survival for OU baseball

  • If there were Most Valuable Player awards being handed out for Oklahoma performances on Sunday, the hands-down recipients should be winning pitchers Grant Stevens and Jett Lodes. Those two players are a giant reason Oklahoma is still alive to play at least one more game this season. Stevens, a third or fourth starter in the Sooner rotation, was on the mound in OU's win-or-go-home game against Duke. He worked a season-high 7.0 innings, allowing just one run on six hits and struck out seven, his high mark as a Sooner, in earning the win. Those two players are a giant reason Oklahoma is still alive to play at least one more game this season.
  • Lodes entered Game 2 on Sunday with no outs in the second inning and was brilliant for the next 7.0 innings, giving up one run on just three hits to a good-hitting UConn lineup. He struck out seven and walked two. The innings pitched and seven strikeouts were both career bests.
  • The two wins give the Sooners 40 for the season against 20 losses, It is the 25th 40-win season in program history and second in the last three years.
  • After going a collective 9 for 13 with eight runs batted in and seven runs scored in Oklahoma's 14-0 rout of Oral Roberts in the opening round of the Norman Regional, the three batters at the top of the Sooners' lineup (John Spikerman, Bryce Madon and Easton Carmichael) have gone a combined 8 for 37 with two RBI and two runs scored in the last three games.
  • Five other teams from the Big 12 besides OU (West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Texas, Kansas State and UCF) made it into the NCAA postseason tournament this season. Oklahoma was the only one hosting a regional. West Virginia and Kansas State won their regionals on Sunday and advanced to the super regionals. Texas and UCF were eliminated over the weekend. Oklahoma State. like the Sooners, is playing for a regional championship on Monday.
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