Sooners take the series against Mississippi State with a 7-3 win Sunday

It took a team effort Sunday, but Oklahoma scored the final five runs of the game and got a shutdown performance from its bullpen en route to a 7-3 rubber-match victory over Mississippi State. Despite losing the series opener to the Bulldogs on Friday night, the Sooners (20-3) have now opened their SEC slate by winning consecutive weekend series.

After claiming a 13-11 win in an offensive firefight on Saturday, Oklahoma kept the momentum rolling Sunday afternoon, pushing a run across in each of the first two innings to take the early lead. A first-inning RBI groundout from Easton Carmichael and a second-inning RBI double from Dawson Willis gave Oklahoma starting pitcher Malachi Witherspoon some margin, but the Bulldogs charged back with three runs in the third frame. MSU third baseman Ace Reese knotted the score with a two-run double off Witherspoon, then came around to score on a base hit from Hunter Hines. Witherspoon escaped the inning without incurring further damage, but departed in the fifth inning after allowing a pair of one-out singles. Fortunately for Witherspoon, hulking southpaw reliever Beau Sampson induced a double-play ball to kill the scoring threat and give Oklahoma a chance to strike back on offense.

The Sooners' bats did just that, and they did it quite promptly. Sam Christiansen led off the bottom of the fifth inning with a first-pitch bomb off Mississippi State starter Karson Ligon, tying the score at 3. After OU reliever Jason Bodin worked a scoreless top of the sixth, the dangerous Oklahoma lineup went to work. Trey Gambill led off with a single, took second on an error and came home immediately on an RBI hit from Easton Carmichael. That chased Ligon from the game, but Oklahoma wasn't done. Jaxon Willits delivered another single off reliever Jacob Pruitt, who then hit Dayton Tockey with a pitch to load the bases. An RBI fielder's choice from Kyle Branch scored another OU run, and pinch-hitter Brayden Horton pushed across another run with an RBI groundout.

Jaden Barfield pitched a clean seventh for the Sooners, then recorded the first out of the eighth before surrendering a base hit and yielding to closer Dylan Crooks in the eighth. Crooks got the final two outs of the frame, then came to the plate in the bottom of the inning and drove home a run with a flawless sacrifice bunt to stretch the lead to 7-3. He returned to the mound and made quick work of the Bulldogs in the ninth to salt away the victory.

Ligon took the loss for MSU, while Bodin (2-0) picked up the win for Oklahoma. It's not immediately clear why Crooks wasn't credited with a save by the game statisticians, but as he entered the game in the eighth with the tying run in the on-deck circle, he definitionally ought to qualify for his seventh save of the year.

Next up for Oklahoma is a midweek matchup with Oral Roberts, as they'll travel to Tulsa on Tuesday to take on the Golden Eagles. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. CT.

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