OU Baseball: Oklahoma Gets Swept by Kansas State

A disastrous end to a tough weekend.

After dropping the middle game on Saturday, Oklahoma finished their series with Kansas State on Sunday looking to avoid the sweep at Tointon Family Stadium in Manhattan, KS.

After falling behind early, the Sooners (13-11, 2-4) battled back to take a four-run lead to the eighth inning, but ultimately were unable to hang on as they fell to the Wildcats (17-8, 4-2) 8-7 to complete the sweep.

Once again, the day didn’t start off great for Oklahoma as left-hander James Hitt got himself into some early trouble.

In the second inning, Kansas State plated three runs against the Texas Tech transfer on a two-run homer from Cole Johnson immediately followed by a solo shot from Raphael Pelletier.

Certainly to his credit though, Hitt would settle things down after that. The lefty worked the next three innings scoreless to finish his day with five completed innings allowing just the three earned runs and keeping his team in the game.

In each of the first two games of the series, a big Wildcats inning proved to be Oklahoma’s undoing.

But on Sunday, the roles were reversed as it would be the Sooners who put up the crooked number in the middle innings.

In the fourth, OU struck for a whopping six runs on a medley of run-scoring hits.

The assembly line began with Easton Carmichael plating Rocco Garza-Gongora on a sacrifice fly before Bryce Madron ripped an RBI double.

💥 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑. 𝐎𝐍𝐄. 💥@Bryce_madron drives home @jg__spikerman23! Sooners with runners on second and third! pic.twitter.com/sWylagNi7J
— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) March 26, 2023

Wallace Clark and Jackson Nicklaus then teamed up for back-to-back RBI singles to leapfrog Oklahoma into the lead at 4-3.

After Kendall Pettis scored Clark on a sacrifice fly, Anthony Mackenzie drove in Nicklaus with an RBI single to close the scoring on the big OU offensive frame.

𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐓

Sooners have scored 𝐒𝐈𝐗 runs!@AnthonyMacken11 singled ✔@j_nicklaus15 scored ✔

T4 | OU 6, KSU 3 pic.twitter.com/REddqhjZEH
— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) March 26, 2023

Will Carsten came in to replace Hitt in the sixth and worked a scoreless inning before John Spikerman tacked on a welcomed insurance run for the Sooners, scoring Pettis on a sac fly.

After seven innings, Oklahoma looked to be in control holding a 7-3 lead.

But, that advantage would prove to not be quite enough.

In the eighth, the Wildcats came all the way back striking for four runs on a pair of two-run hits from Cash Rugely and Pelletier.

After OU was unable to push anything across in the top of the ninth, Kansas State then walked the game off in the bottom half with Brady Day driving in the winning run on a deep single to right field.

The gut-punch loss is the Sooners' fourth in a row and has them looking for answers after a rough stretch.

Hoping to build up some momentum, Oklahoma will continue action in the state of Kansas on Tuesday night with a road tilt against Wichita State.