Oklahoma baseball hosted Kansas on Friday night in the first of a three-game weekend set at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman.
After knocking off Oral Roberts in a wild one on Tuesday night, the Sooners were looking to build some momentum after having gone through a serious rough patch the couple of weeks prior. It’s only a second consecutive win, but Skip Johnson’s club may have done just in sparking a run as they got the job done defeating the Jayhawks 10-4.
Getting the start as he has all year on Friday nights was right-hander Wyatt Olds (2-3), who had one of his best outings of the season. He worked his way into the sixth inning allowing just two earned runs (four total) and striking out six. This was an encouraging outing for Olds who has had a fairly disappointing season to this point. Maybe this is the start of a strong finish to the year for him.
Things didn’t start off particularly strong for him, though, as Kansas struck for two runs in the opening inning to snag an early lead. Oklahoma would then quickly respond with three runs in the bottom half of the inning on a solo home run by center fielder Tanner Tredaway, an RBI single by right fielder Brett Squires and a run in on a fielder’s choice off the bat of second baseman Conor McKenna.
The Jayhawks would knot things right back up in the top of the second on an RBI double by shortstop Maui Ahuna. The game would remain tied at 3-3 into the fourth inning. The teams would then trade runs to keep things tied up at 4-4 heading to the fifth frame.
It was this point that the Sooners would insert their will and pull away plating five runs to take a commanding lead. Left fielder Diego Muniz picked up a two-run single before Squires popped a three-run homer to make it a 9-4 game.
Oklahoma would go on to add another run on an RBI knock by McKenna to make it 10-4 which would go on to be the final score. Left-hander Ledgend Smith was especially good in this one tossing three shutout frames out of the bullpen before right-hander Luke Taggart came in for the final two outs in the ninth.
The win pushes the Sooners back above .500 on the season at 15-14 and gets them a needed Big 12 win to improve their conference record to 2-5. This was one of the more complete all-around wins for the team in some time.
A night where the bats put up runs, Olds puts out a solid outing and the bullpen locks it down is just about picture perfect for Oklahoma. This was pretty close to exactly what you want if you are Skip Johnson and company coming in, so in that respect they have to be pretty happy with this one.
While this is a really good win for the Sooners, it is rendered mostly meaningless if they don’t keep it going through the rest of the weekend. This is an absolute must-have series win, with maybe even a sweep being what the doctor ordered right now. This was certainly a good start.
Game two will be back at L. Dale Mitchell Park on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. CT.
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