Tag: Luke Broadhurst

Sooners eliminated from NCAA Tournament after 7-1 loss to UConn

Oklahoma Sooners season comes to an end after 7-1 loss to UCONN in regional title game

Monday was a rough day for both Oklahoma sports teams on the diamond. While the ladies of the softball team lost at the hands of Florida, the baseball team had their own business to tend to.

The mission was straightforward: Win and move on to the Super Regionals to face the Florida State Seminoles.

However, things didn’t go nearly as planned. The UConn Huskies, winners of the Big East regular-season crown, laid waste to the Sooners in Norman to punch their ticket to Tallahassee.

Carson Atwood received the start for the Sooners, while the Huskies sent out DIII transfer Gabe Van Emon to start things in the winner-take-all game.

After keeping the Huskies off the board first, the Sooners opened up the bottom of the first, looking to strike first and capture some serious momentum.

John Spikerman led the inning off with a single up the middle before Bryce Madron worked a walk. An Easton Carmichael double play followed and UConn coach Jim Penders decided to intentionally walk Michael Snyder. Snyder has terrorized opposing pitching staffs in the regional, which led to a Jaxon Willits ground out and the end of the inning.

What started as a promising half-inning fizzled out big time. That was virtually the game for the Sooners.

Both teams were held scoreless until the fourth inning, when things came apart for the Sooners.

Korey Morton cranked a two-run homer over the fence in left-center to put the Huskies out in front. Catcher Scott Mudler made a critical throwing error to complete what would have been a strikeout and the third out of the inning. The ball rolled to the wall on the right field, and Tyler Minnick raced around to third base.

After Skip Johnson relieved Arwood, he brought in Carter Campbell, who promptly gave up a two-run homer. The Huskies lead doubled to 4-0.

After connecting on a couple of singles, in the bottom half of the inning, OU remained scoreless. They couldn’t put together the big hit when needed.

Luke Broadhurst and Korey Morton delivered RBI singles for UConn later in the game to make it 6-0 and that pretty much decided the game.

Van Emon, hardly a flamethrower, used well-located breaking pitches to keep the Sooners off balance. His defense behind him, by far the best defensive unit in this region and the best defensive team OU has played all season, kept dazzling with spectacular plays and made the routine ones look routine. He pitched 7.1 shutout innings, allowed five hits, and walked just two batters en route to the win.

A dynamic offense like Oklahoma’s just ran into bad luck, and a much-improved pitching unit had one of its least effective outings in quite some time. Throw in some defensive miscues by the Sooners, and you will get the result.

With the loss, OU’s season comes to an ends. The Sooners will have quite a few returners but lose some valuable pieces as they leap to the SEC next season. There will be multiple decisions to make, and Skip Johnson and his staff will have to use the transfer portal to fill in gaps along the way.

Johnson and this team were a much-improved group, winning a Big 12 regular season title and earning a top 16 national seed. It’s not the way anyone expected the season to end, but OU shouldn’t hang its head. They put together a terrific season.

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Oklahoma Sooners fall to UConn Huskies 4-1 in Norman Regional

Oklahoma Sooners couldn’t hit with runners on and fall to UConn 4-1.

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.