OU Baseball: Oklahoma Gearing up for Eventful Weekend as Baylor Comes to Town

The Sooners host the Baylor Bears this weekend for three games to wrap up the regular season home schedule.

Jun 25, 2022; Omaha, NE, USA; Oklahoma Sooners head coach Skip Johnson looks over the field / Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports

NORMAN — With just two series left in the regular season, No. 18 Oklahoma sits atop the Big 12 Conference standings.

At 29-17 on the year and 18-6 in conference play, the Sooners hold a three-game lead over heated rival Oklahoma State and will have the chance to host an NCAA Regional event if Skip Johnson's team can close the year on a high note.

That opportunity will begin on Friday night, when the Baylor Bears travel to Norman for Game 1 of a three-game series between the two squads. The three home games will mark OU's final regular season contests at L. Dale Mitchell Park this season.

At 6:30 p.m. on Friday, junior left hander Braden Davis will take the mound for the Sooners against Baylor right hander Mason Marriott to start the series. Davis has earned a win in his last four starts and has developed into Oklahoma's ace as the 2024 campaign has progressed.

On Saturday, sophomore right hander Kyson Witherspoon is set to be on the bump for OU while sophomore left hander Ethan Calder is scheduled to start for the Bears. Calder is one of Baylor's top arms and has just a 2.91 ERA this season, but hasn't gotten a win since March 19.

The former Lake Travis (TX) standout allowed four earned runs and eight hits in 6 2/3 innings pitched against TCU during his last outing as the Bears fell to the Horned Frogs.

Saturday's contest will start at 4 p.m., with a pregame jersey retirement celebration for legendary OU baseball coach Enos Semore taking place just before the game at 3:30.

Semore coached at Oklahoma from 1968-89, tallying 851 wins in his nearly 20-year tenure as head coach. Under the Haskell native, the Sooners made five consecutive College World Series appearances and won a program-record 62 games in 1976.

Semore also coached OU to seven Big Eight titles and was named the conference's Coach of the Year in 1989. The accomplished coach was a 2005 American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee and will now see his jersey retired at L. Dale Mitchell Park.

Johnson said he is looking forward to the event and is excited for his athletes to meet one of college baseball's legendary figures.

“He was one of the icons,” Johnson said Thursday. “It’s unbelievable, I’m kind of glad it happened under my watch. Is it long overdue? Probably so, but that’s not my choice. I’m excited from our standpoint so our kids can really see the man that built this program in their lifetime. We try to carry that torch, I know that I try to carry that torch, about how he went about the business and how our kids act on a daily basis. Whether it’s getting on a plane, going into a restaurant, taking your hats off. Doing the things that that guy set the example for us a long time ago, and then playing on the field, playing the game the right way.” 

The final outing of this weekend's series between Oklahoma and Baylor will start at 2 p.m. Sunday. This will be the Sooners' final home game of the regular season and will serve as senior day, where players who are graduating this semester will be honored.

After sweeping Texas Tech in Lubbock last weekend, Johnson and company will look for their sixth series sweep of the season this weekend against Baylor. A sweep of the Bears would continue to build OU's momentum with the postseason less than two weeks away.

Following their series against Baylor, Oklahoma will have just four regular season games left. The Sooners will travel to Xavier on May 14 for a matchup against the Musketeers before playing a three-game series at Cincinnati to close out the regular season.