OU Baseball: Oklahoma Beats Kentucky 5-1 in First Round of SEC Tournament

After Kentucky swept Oklahoma during the regular season, the Sooners got revenge in Hoover, AL, on Tuesday.

Oklahoma Outfielder Jason Walk / Carson Field, Sooners on SI

Oklahoma’s struggles to end the regular season didn’t carry into its first postseason game.

The Sooners beat Kentucky 5-1 in the first round of the SEC Tournament on Tuesday. Prior to Tuesday’s win in Hoover, AL, they had lost six of their last seven games.

"I thought they had a lot of effort, really competitive," OU coach Skip Johnson said in SEC Network's postgame interview.

Oklahoma’s pitching set the tone for the win.

Kentucky’s only run came in the top of the third inning, when Luke Lawrence scored on a Sooners’ fielding error.

The Wildcats (29-24, 13-17 SEC) mustered six hits throughout the game and left six men on base.

Jaden Barfield opened the game for Oklahoma on the mound, allowing four hits and zero earned runs in four innings. James Hitt pitched the next four innings, giving the Wildcats only three baserunners on two hits and one walk. Dylan Crooks closed the game, retiring Kentucky in order to clinch the win.

"Really just going in and attacking batters," Barfield said of the pitching staff's outing. "Getting at them early and letting the defense do the work."

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Hitt earned the win, his second of the year, as his ERA improved to 2.45. Crooks did not earn a save for his perfect inning, as the Sooners led by four runs.

Kentucky’s run was the first of the game, but the Sooners answered quickly.

Outfielder Jason Walk drove in outfielder Dasan Harris and himself on a two-run home run in the bottom of the third inning. Catcher Easton Carmichael added to the Sooners’ lead later in the inning with an RBI single.

After that, the Sooners (34-19, 14-16 SEC) tacked on two insurance runs. Infielder Kyle Branch drove shortstop Jaxon Willits in on a fielder’s choice in the sixth, and in the eighth, Willits got Carmichael across on a sacrifice fly.

Oklahoma finished the game with seven hits as a team, and Carmichael was the only Sooner to log multiple hits.

Tuesday’s win avenges the Wildcats’ regular-season sweep of OU. The three straight losses to Kentucky were part of the skid that saw the Sooners lose six of their final seven regular-season games.

Oklahoma will battle Georgia, the 5-seed in the SEC Tournament, in the second round on Wednesday. The Sooners dropped two of three games to the Bulldogs in Athens in April. Georgia, which finished the regular season 42-14 overall, is ranked No. 10 nationally in the latest D1Baseball Top 25.

The start time of Wednesday's game is to be determined.

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