Oklahoma Baseball: Sooners Drop Series Finale to Kansas State
NORMAN – A disappointing end to what had been a dominant weekend.
After hanging 22 runs on the board in a blowout win on Saturday, Oklahoma concluded their series with Kansas State on Sunday afternoon at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman.
Unfortunately for the Sooners and unlike last weekend, they would not be able to complete the sweep falling to the Wildcats by a final score of 8-7.
"We didn't execute some stuff on the mound side of it," head coach Skip Johnson said postgame.
"All in all, we came back and swung the bats really good. But we left a guy at second with no outs that cost us probably another run early. We got to continue to grow in those areas. It's not a finished product, by no means."
Getting the start for Oklahoma was right-hander Cade Horton, who got eased back into the fold after a back injury forced a quick exit of his last start a week ago.
While it wasn’t for long, Horton was effective in his two innings allowing just a single run and a single hit.
Recording the next ten outs after Horton was left-hander Chazz Martinez, who was tremendous in relief on Sunday.
The JUCO transfer worked 3.1 scoreless innings allowing just one hit and no runs with a pair of strikeouts.
Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the first, Sooners second baseman Jackson Nicklaus would get the OU offense going right away with a solo shot to left center that tied the game.
Nicklaus homered in every game of the series.
"He's (Nicklaus) gotten going again," Johnson said. "That's a good thing. He's been working really hard at it. Him and Coach (Clay) Van Hook have been working on his swing, which is great."
Brett Squires put Oklahoma in front just one inning later with a home run of his own, a two-run shot to left center to make the score 3-1 in favor of OU.
After the Wildcats worked a run in the fifth to slice the deficit in half, Nicklaus would once again get it right back for the Sooners with an RBI single to push the lead back to two runs at 4-2.
One inning later, third baseman Wallace Clark doubled the Oklahoma lead with a two-run double chopped over third base. The Sooners led 6-2 after six innings.
But, it was at this point that the Kansas State offense would start to get it rolling.
The Wildcats scored two in the seventh on RBI hits from Kaelen Culpepper and Dylan Phillips to trim the deficit to two runs at 6-4.
KSU then jumped in front in the eighth striking for four runs on a solo home run by Josh Nicoloff, an RBI double by Justin Mitchell and a two-run homer by Dominic Johnson.
The normally-reliable reliever Trevin Michael would finish his day having allowed six earned runs and eight hits.
"We can't expect him (Michael) to go out and throw up goose eggs every time," Johnson said. "He's good. It's like I told him in there, that's the guy we want up.
"He's going to be good the rest of the year."
Oklahoma would work one run back in the eighth on a sacrifice fly from Horton, but that would be all as the Wildcats bullpen held on for the 8-7 win.
The tough loss drops Oklahoma to 27-15 on the year and ends their Big 12 winning streak at five games, moving their league record down to 9-6.
"We've put ourselves in a good position (in the conference standings)," Johnson said. "That's what we're looking for, our goal is to win the conference. That's what we want to do."
After a day off on Monday, the Sooners will step out of Big 12 play for a midweek clash at Dallas Baptist at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday night.