OMAHA, Neb. - For the first time since 1994, Oklahoma will play for a national championship in baseball.
Yes, you read that correctly. No. Hell isn't freezing over -- yet.
Jimmy Crooks hit his fourth homerun of the NCAA Tournament with a first inning 3-run blast. David Sandlin struck out a career-high 12 over seven innings. And Oklahoma continued to peacock its way through the Men's College World Series with a 5-1 victory Wednesday at Charles Schwab Field.
No 'if game' needed for this group. We're running out of superlatives.
"I think those kids are focused. I don't know if it's dog-piling or whatever it is. I mean, it's kind of weird sometimes. I don't tell them not to dog-pile, I can tell you that," said Oklahoma head coach Skip Johnson.
"I'm real emotional. It might not seem like I am. I'm just thanking Jesus for the moment really and all the people that are pulling for a bunch of guys named David. It happened to be David pitching today."
Sometimes these stories write themselves. Magical. Retweet. Subscribe. And there's still a few chapters left.
"Yeah, I mean, it's really special. A guy named David," said an elated Johnson. "That's really what kind of what started this deal. It started with the lines back the beginning of the year, and then it's transitioned to David and being just a bunch of Davids. I'm really proud of those guys."
And how fitting that it was Oklahoma's *actual* David who was the one that pitched the Sooners into Saturday's national championship series.
Putting behind him a less than debut out of the bullpen on Friday, Sandlin struck out the side in the first. Okay. That's a good start. Then again in the fourth. A turning point., after the Aggies first two baserunners reached following a leadoff walk and a Ryan Targac single.
"I mean, it helped for sure. I was just focused on just one out at a time executing spots," said Sandlin of his fourth inning escape. "Whatever Jimmy called, I just wanted to execute it to the best of my ability. No matter if there was runners on, bases loaded, no outs, two outs, whatever happened, I just wanted to execute what he called."
By the fifth Sandlin had tied his career-high striking out Trevor Warner. Tanner Tredaway extended his hitting streak to 17 games in the bottom half with an RBI single to make it 5-0.
But it felt like 100-0 with Sandlin on the mound. It was Oklahoma's day. And it might just be Oklahoma's season.
"Like Skip and David preach, throwing the first strike was the key with them. That's with every pitcher. The difference with him, he is not used to coming out of the pen, which some pitchers aren't, but he turned it around," said Sandlin's battery-mate Jimmy Crooks.
"Today he was just a bulldog on the mound. He just threw first pitch strike, get after it, get ahead, and then just kept rolling."
Rolling, indeed. He threw 17 first pitch strikes to the 27 batters he faced. His 100th and final pitch a fastball by Kole Kaler to end the seventh. A fitting end to a remarkable day The 12 strikeouts the most by a Big 12 pitcher in Omaha all-time.
"His fastball command and his slider and just trying to keep those guys off balance as much as you can," said Johnson. "Like he said, getting strike one was really huge for him. Then trying to locate a pitch after that. I thought his change-up was good late. At times he took some curve balls off the sliders that were really good as well."
Dylan Rock got the Aggies on the board with a solo shot in the sixth but Sandlin answered back sitting down the next six batters before handing the ball to Trevin Michael for the final two frames.
"It's huge. Now (Jake) Bennett can go on a full week's rest. They're used to doing that. Any time you get them off that, you kind of worry about it a little bit. We actually threw a bullpen for Bennett just in case he had to throw tomorrow just to stay ahead of the game," said Johnson.
"Then (Cade) Horton will have a full game's rest of going into his outing probably the second game."
It's all set for Oklahoma heading into the weekend.
Thanks to bunch of Davids' led by a David.
