Oklahoma Freshmen Unbothered by Bright Lights of Omaha
OMAHA – The College World Series is the biggest stage college baseball has to offer.
It’s the pinnacle of the sport, the place every team is determined to reach at the dawn of a new season.
With the lights so bright and attention on the event so high, many players over the years have crumbled under the pressures of Omaha. After all, athletes are human.
But for three Oklahoma freshmen, it has just been business as usual.
Right fielder John Spikerman, second baseman Jackson Nicklaus and third baseman Wallace Clark have all been right at the heart of the Sooners’ deep postseason run that has them just one win away from playing for a national title.
While the three youngsters largely burst onto the scene unexpectedly for most fans, they had a belief in what they could do from the beginning.
“Kind of knew whenever we got here in the fall and we all started doing the fall ball scrimmages and everything, and everyone was competing from day one and everybody showed a lot of promise,” Clark said following OU’s 6-2 win over Notre Dame on Sunday night. “And just from the very beginning I knew we had a special class in the making right now.”
It didn’t take long for them to make their impact in Omaha, either.
In Friday afternoon’s CWS opener against Texas A&M, Spikerman led the game off with a walk and later picked up an RBI single with Nicklaus connecting on the big swing of the game — a fourth inning grand slam to put the game out of reach.
“The best part of that was you have John Spikerman, a true freshman, goes in there, his first at-bat of the game, gets a (leadoff) walk,” closer Trevin Michael said after the game on Friday afternoon. “And Jackson Nicklaus, a true freshman, going out and did the same thing. Those are two freshmen that are on the biggest stage in the world for college baseball and they go in and have poised at-bats.”
John Spikerman
John Hoover / AllSooners
So how have these players managed to be so good in an environment unlike any other that they have ever played in? They would tell you it’s because of their coach.
Skip Johnson, who is in the midst of his fifth year in Norman, has put together a banner season with Oklahoma.
After finishing below .500 and missing the NCAA Tournament in 2021, the Sooners have been one of the biggest surprise teams in the country, with Johnson’s key team additions in the last offseason a heavy catalyst.
“Me being a true freshman, this is all new to me. Everything about this is a new experience,” Nicklaus said. “And Skip has really helped develop me as a player and a man early in the fall. He was hard when he needed to be hard on me. He was light when he needed to be light on me. He helped me get acclimated to playing, gave me a shot where not a lot of other programs would.
“He likes to keep it fun and joke around and likes to give us a hard time at practice. On the road we keep it light. But it's also discipline. We're a disciplined team and he instills that in us.”
Also not to be overlooked certainly are the exploits of right-handed pitcher Cade Horton, who continues to dominate in the postseason.
While not a true freshman like the other three, this is Horton’s first real year of college baseball after missing all of last season due to injury.
It took him some time in 2022 to get back to his groove, but now he is arguably serving as Oklahoma’s most important player in the NCAA Tournament.
“I (have) said it to several people, (Horton is) one of the best freshman pitchers I've been around, ever,” Johnson said.
The Sooners sensational freshmen will look to keep the good times rolling on Wednesday afternoon against either the Aggies or the Fighting Irish at 1 p.m. back at Charles Schwab Field in downtown.