Sooners' hot bats falter in Big 12 title game loss to Oklahoma State
After 28 years, it's officially over.
The University of Oklahoma will never participate in another Big 12-sanctioned sporting event. And less than six weeks from the SEC-bound Sooners' official exodus, they had the chance to wave goodbye to the Big 12 as champions.
But it was not to be on Saturday evening, as Skip Johnson's talented baseball squad fell to Oklahoma State in the final of the conference tournament. The top-seeded Sooners won the Big 12 regular-season title, and were in search of their second Big 12 tournament title in the last three seasons. But they couldn't overcome an offensive surge from their intra-state Bedlam rivals, who rolled to a 9-3 win.
Oklahoma State had bested Texas Tech and UCF on Friday to earn the right to oppose the Sooners for the Big 12 championship. This Bedlam tilt marked the fourth matchup of the season between the two intra-state rivals; the Cowboys had taken two of three games from OU in an April series in Stillwater.
Both teams entered Saturday's contest running on fumes from a pitching standpoint, and after playing three games in three days, Oklahoma turned to lefty reliever Carter Campbell for his first start of the season. Oklahoma State, which had played four games across the previous three days of tournament play, countered with right-handed reliever Tommy Molsky. The Pokes drew first blood, as Campbell allowed a pair of first-inning hits and Zach Ehrhard lofted a sacrifice fly to center to plate the game's first run.
However, after stranding a runner to end the early threat, Campbell settled down. The senior southpaw put up zeroes in the second, third and fourth innings, even striking out the side in the fourth. But the Sooners' bats couldn't solve Molsky, who racked up eight strikeouts and kept OU scoreless through his first four innings of work.
Come the fifth inning, Campbell got into some trouble, surrendering a single and a double to start the frame. Johnson made the call to the bullpen for right-hander Dylan Crooks, who promptly surrendered a sacrifice fly to Avery Ortiz and an RBI infield single to Lane Forsythe. After a Carson Benge single, Crooks induced a pop-up for the inning's second out, but then uncorked a wild pitch that ricocheted to the backstop. Forsythe sauntered across the plate as the Pokes opened up a 4-0 lead.
After Crooks finally extinguished the rally, the Oklahoma bats answered immediately. Molsky hit Kendall Pettis with a pitch to open the bottom of the fifth, and 9-hole hitter Jason Walk delivered a one-out single. John Spikerman followed with a line-drive double to left center that drove Pettis home, moved Walk to third and chased Molsky from the game. After Oklahoma State righty Gabe Davis took over on the hill, Easton Carmichael lifted a fly ball to right that got deep enough to score Walk. Though Davis escaped the jam without incurring further damage, the Sooners had cut the deficit in half.
Crooks and Davis traded zeroes in the sixth, but Oklahoma State broke the game wide open in the seventh. After one-out singles from Forsythe and Benge, Cowboy left fielder Nolan Schubart hammered a three-run homer to dead center off a wilting Crooks to increase the lead to 7-2. Kollin Ritchie and Ian Daugherty padded Oklahoma State's lead in the eighth with back-to-back solo shots off Will Carsten. Oklahoma mustered a run in the bottom of the eighth on a Michael Snyder RBI double, but nothing further.
Davis was the pitcher of record for the Cowboys, and Campbell took the loss for the Sooners.
Oklahoma entered the Big 12 tournament as the conference's top seed and the No. 8 team in the nation. Despite the loss, it's still a virtual guarantee that OU's road back to Omaha will run through the familiar confines of L. Dale Mitchell Park.
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