Lachance, Rager Shine as Oklahoma Dominates North Carolina in CWS Opener

OMAHA, NE — Hey, the combination of Cord Rager and Deiten Lachance would be a lot to take on for just about any team.

Last Saturday they were too much for Alabama. This Saturday, they were too much for North Carolina.

Lachance hit two more home runs off UNC’s ace and Rager pitched out of a messy first inning to shut down the Tar Heels for four straight innings as OU beat Carolina 9-3 in Game 1 of the College World Series Championship Series.

And now, riding a nine-game winning streak, the Sooners are one win away from bringing home their first national championship in 32 years.

OU improved to 42-22, while UNC fell to 53-13-1.

Game 2 is scheduled for Sunday at 1:30 p.m. on ABC. If the Tar Heels win and break the Sooners’ streak, Game 3 is set for Monday night (6 p.m., ESPN).

The 2026 OU squad is seeking to join the 1951 and 1994 teams as the program's only national champions. UNC has never won a national title in baseball.

Sooner Nation was badly outnumbered by Ole Miss faithful when OU lost the championship series in 2022, but they showed up in force this time, representing well over half the partisans among Saturday's gathering of 24,707 a Charles Schwab Field.

As good as it was, the crowd didn't have nearly as much an effect on the outcome as did the performances of Rager, Lachance and the rest of the OU roster.

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North Carolina ace Jason DeCaro had allowed just 24 earned runs all season, but the Sooners plated seven against him as OU jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, then exploded for four runs in the fourth.

Among those early offensive explosions were Lachance’s 17th and 18th home runs of the season — his fifth and sixth of the postseason and his second and third of the CWS. He became just the fifth player in CWS history to hit two homers in a championship game.

Lachance’s first bomb came in the first inning and traveled 405 feet to barely clear the wall in right-center field. He hit another in the fourth that left no doubt, clearing the Carolina bullpen in left field and landed 382 feet away.

Lachance hit no home runs in his first 31 games this season, but now has 18 in his last 34 games.

He staked the Sooners to an early lead when he followed Camden Johnson’s one-out single with a two-run blast to right-center.

Cord Rager Oklahoma Sooners — Oklahoma pitcher Cord Rager (99) throws against the North Carolina Tar Heels. | Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images

Meanwhile, Rager’s return from a midseason injury to dominant form this postseason also continued.

After shutting out the Crimson Tide 9-0 in the Sooners’ CWS opener last week, he returned to the mound on Saturday afternoon and eventually put the clamps on a red-hot Tar Heels lineup.

Something Bama coach Rod Vaughn noticed about Rager last week — he’s not as effective pitching out of the stretch (with runners on base) — seemed to come into play in the first inning against UNC.

“I thought, if we could get Cord out of the stretch — the stuff was good all day, but felt like … his stuff wasn't quite as dangerous out of the stretch,” Vaughn said in the postgame press conference last week.

Carolina leadoff hitter Jake Schaffner singled off Rager to open the game, and Rager had to pitch out of the stretch for the rest of the inning.

Owen Hull doubled to left, Gavin Gallaher hit a two-run single up the middle, and Erik Paulsen doubled to left-center, all with no out. After an out and a walk, Colin Hynek drove in another run with a sacrifice fly, and OU’s 2-0 lead in the top of the first had become a 3-2 deficit in the bottom of the first.

The damage could have been a lot worse.

But the 6-foot-5, 231-pound Lachance tied it at 3-3 in the third inning with a solo long ball to left.

From there, OU’s postseason bats simply stayed very, very warm.

Brendan Brock drew a one-out walk and moved to third on red-hot Dasan Harris’ double down the right field line. After a strikeout, 9-hole hitter Kyle Branch ended his hitless streak in Omaha (0-for-11; his season average had dipped to .211) by delivering a two-run single up the middle to give OU a 5-3 lead.

Branch stole second and took third on a wild pitch, then scored easily on Jason Walk’s single under the glove at short for a 6-3 lead. Walk stole second, and Camden Johnson made it 7-3 when he sent Walk home with an RBI single to right center.

Rager, a 6-foot-6, 237-pound true freshman left hander, ran into a little trouble in the fifth when he hit another batter, but after a visit to the mound from Skip Johnson, he was allowed to stay in the game and finished five innings for the win, moving to 7-3 on the season.

Rager gave up just three runs (all earned) on five hits, two walks and two hit batters. He struck out five and finished the night on 100 total pitches.

The Sooners’ hit parade continued in the sixth when Dayton Tockey opened things with a double down the right field line and Branch bunted him to third. Tockey scored standing up when Walk singled up the middle again, making it 8-3 Oklahoma.

Junior left hander Gavyn Jones stepped in for Rager and put in 2 1/3 scoreless innings with four strikeouts before turning it over to L.J. Mercurius.

OU added a run in a rainy ninth when Camden Johnson walked, took third on Lachance’s single to right and came home on Willts’ double play ground ball to make it 9-3.

The game was originally scheduled for a 7 p.m. start, but a wet forecast pushed first pitch up five hours to 2 p.m. Still, the weather arrived earlier than expected as nearly the entire ninth inning was played in a steady downpour that emptied the seats.

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