After a picture-perfect start to hosting their first regional in almost 20 years, [autotag]Skip Johnson[/autotag] and the Oklahoma Sooners saw it all come crashing down on Saturday night. They lost to the Big East regular season champion UCONN Huskies 4-1.
The Sooners came into the game with loads of momentum after a 14-0 shutout of Oral Roberts Friday night. On Friday afternoon, UCONN beat the two-seed in the region, Duke, by a 4-1 score.
Both teams knew Saturday night would be a grind, but for OU, they felt great.
[autotag]Braden Davis[/autotag], the staff ace, didn’t pitch on Friday because Johnson wanted to save him for this matchup instead. While he was right in theory, things didn’t go as he wanted them to.
Oklahoma was the road team, so they started the game batting first. Oklahoma could get nothing off Connecticut pitcher Stephen Quigley despite a Bryce Madron hit.
Davis worked out of a jam in the bottom of the second to keep things tied. Oklahoma had two hits in the top half of the third, but Quigley worked himself out of a jam and kept Oklahoma off the board.
In the bottom half of the inning, a two-out rally featuring two walks and a single by the Huskies’ Korey Morton allowed UConn to draw first blood and take a 1-0 lead.
Oklahoma got doubles in the fourth and fifth innings from [autotag]Michael Snyder[/autotag] and [autotag]John Spikerman[/autotag], but couldn’t bring them home.
That would remain the story of the night for the Sooners. In the bottom of the seventh inning, after back-to-back 1-out singles, RHP Dylan Crooks entered in relief of Braden Davis, who pitched 6.1 innings, allowing seven hits and walking three batters. He threw 109 pitches and struck out ten batters. He was also on the hook for three earned runs when Luke Broadhurst hammered a ball to deep left field to push the Huskies’ lead to 4-0.
Kendall Pettis hit a homer in the eighth, but that would be the last hurrah from the Sooners before the game ended. The Sooners got Jackson Nicklaus up for the tying run, but Nicklaus couldn’t make any noise, and the game was over.
Oklahoma’s inability to get the big hit doomed them. They pitched well enough to stay within striking distance but could never push themselves to get the one or two big hits necessary to flip momentum to their side.
Redshirt senior outfielder Kendall Pettis went 2-for-3 with a home run. He was the standout offensively.
With the loss, the Sooners will face Duke, the two-seed in this regional, with their season on the line.
Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Bryant on X @thatmanbryant.