Oklahoma Closer Jackson Cleveland Has Fueled CWS Surge: 'He's Our Guy'

OMAHA, NE — The talk around Oklahoma this postseason has been almost exclusively centered on two things.

One is the Sooners’ sudden power surge. In mid-April, OU ranked 130th nationally with 30 home runs in 32 games. Now, two games into the College World Series, they rank 39th nationally with 86 bombs in 62 games.

The math says Sooner bats have mashed 56 home runs in their last 30 games. Ridiculous.

The other topic at Oklahoma has been Skip Johnson’s starting rotation — specifically, how he’s literally turned the postseason over to three freshmen hurlers: Cord Rager, Xander Mercurius and, as of Wednesday night’s bracket finals rematch with Georgia, Nick Wesloski.

The first two mowed through Alabama and Georgia in OU’s first two CWS wins. The 6-foot-3, 219-pound Wesloski, who hails from the DFW suburb of McKinney, TX, gets his second career start in a 6 p.m. showdown with the Bulldogs at Charles Schwab Field. His first was two weeks ago in the Atlanta Regional.

If OU beats Georgia again, the Sooners advance to the best-of-3 CWS Championship Series. If OU loses, the teams play again on Thursday night.

But there’s a third common thread that has helped stitch together the Sooners’ improbable postseason run: quality, clutch relief pitching — and from a senior, not a freshman.

That’s Jackson Cleveland, the Sooners’ closer who pitched 1 2/3 innings of shutout ball against Georgia on Monday night to put OU in the driver’s seat. In the NCAA Tournament, he’s thrown 9 1/3 innings in four relief appearances, and has pitched a shutout in three of them.

Cleveland is on his fourth school in four years of college baseball. After growing up in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, TX, Cleveland started out at North Central Texas College in Gainesville, then pitched at Lamar in 2023 and at Miami (FL) in 2025.

“You could tell he was really mature,” Johnson said. “His dad's a schoolteacher. I mean, he goes about his business the right way. He goes about his work the right way.

“It's four schools in four years, but he landed at the right one at the right time.”

Johnson wasn’t exactly sure what the 6-foot, 209-pound right hander brought to the table when the season began in mid-February. Cleveland hadn’t put up dominant numbers at any of his previous stops. But there was something about him that Johnson liked.

“He's a little guy that's probably been told most of his life that he can't do it,” Johnson said. “And he's an overachiever. He's a pitcher. He’s a baseball player that's a pitcher. He throws five or six different pitches. He’s a really fun kid to be around, a leader, really gelled. When he first got in here the first month in September, when we started intrasquads and practice, I mean, he fit right in.”

Cleveland got his first OU win against Arizona State on Feb. 25. He got his first save on March 3 against Dallas Baptist. He added two saves against Santa Clara, one against LSU and two against Vanderbilt, and suddenly his role was clear as the Sooners’ closer.

He helped turn things around in the regular-season finale against Tennessee at Bricktown Ballpark by earning his eighth save behind 1 1/3 scoreless innings. After two innings of work in a loss to LSU in the SEC Tournament, Cleveland has been mostly brilliant.

Johnson went to him early after starter Cameron Johnson couldn’t get an out in the loss to Georgia Tech. Cleveland ended up pitching three innings in almost a starting role, and allowed five hits and five earned runs.

The next day against the Yellow Jackets, however, Cleveland was at his very best: 3 2/3 scoreless innings of relief, with no hits and only one walk allowed in OU’s 8-7 win.

He worked a scoreless inning in a 13-2 wipeout last week at Kansas, and then returned to action Monday night against possibly the nation’s best offense and logged his ninth save.

Cleveland entered the game after Mercurius yielded his third solo home run of the night as Georgia cut OU’s lead to 4-3 with one out in the eighth.

Rylan Lujo singled, but then Cleveland got a popup. He started Kenny Ishikawa on an 0-2 count, but then threw four consecutive balls to put two runners on base — and then induced Ryan Wynn into a fly ball out.

Things got even stickier in the ninth.

Brennan Hudson started the inning with a single. Cleveland struck out Kolby Branch for the first out, but then he plunked pinch-hitter Cole Johnson to once again put the go-ahead run on first base.

That’s when Cleveland rose up and stepped into Sooner lore.

He got leadoff hitter Tre Phelps to chase an 0-2 pitch out of the zone, and induced slugger Daniel Jackson to fly out to center to end it.

“Phelps, I mean, I ... gave my everything on that last fastball to him as either him or me,” Cleveland said, “and it turned out for me.”

Jackson ranks No. 2 nationally with 32 home runs — including a tape-measure blast earlier in the game that disappeared into the night.

“Jackson, I just got lucky on the last pitch,” Cleveland said. “Threw the hand slider, and thank gosh it wasn't the curveball, otherwise he probably would have hit that a little farther.”

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Tension was palpable in the stadium on Monday night as Georgia’s comeback looked at times inevitable. Fans on both sides were roaring and hearts were pounding in both dugouts as the game hung on Cleveland’s two big pitches.

And when Jackson made contact and the ball traced skyward, there was a collective gasp as time seemed to stand still.

“I thought it was out at first,” Wesloski said Thursday.

“Kind of a little, little nervous,” said OU left fielder Brendan Brock. “But I knew that Cleveland could do it. And so then I saw that ball by Daniel Jackson, I'm like, kind of a sigh of relief. Because, I mean, he went like 500 feet earlier, so. …”

Wesloski explained why his tiny little doubt was quickly extinguished.

“Yeah, it's Cleveland,” he said. “No matter who's in front of him, he'll get him out. He’s he's out there for a reason. We trust him for a reason. He’s been our go-to guy. Even though there's two runners on, I still have complete confidence of knowing that he pounds the zone. He has 18 different pitches. He throws them all for strikes. He's our guy.”

Cleveland said there’s a reason why he embraces such situations, rather than hoping to avoid them.

“I would say just more of a competitiveness to it,” he said. “Like, you want to face the best guys. And so coming into that moment, you get to face one of the best lineups again, and we’re on the biggest stage so it’s just pure adrenaline and being competitive.”

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