OU Baseball: Oklahoma Loses Big 12 Opener Big to No. 13 TCU

Starting off conference play on the wrong foot.

After having their winning streak snapped by Wichita State in the midweek contest, Oklahoma returned home on Friday for the start of Big 12 play and the opening of a three-game set against TCU.

But, despite having won nine of ten games prior to the loss to the Shockers, the Sooners (11-7, 0-1) have now dropped two in a row after they were hammered by the Horned Frogs (10-7, 1-0) 13-5 at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman.

Getting the Friday night start again for Oklahoma was right-hander Kale Davis (2-1), who escaped trouble in the first with a big swinging strikeout with runners at second and third base for the Frogs.

He would not be as fortunate, though, in the second inning.

After TCU got on the board with an RBI single, Brayden Taylor tripled the lead with a two-run home run right down the right field line. Just like that, the Horned Frogs led 3-0.

The Sooners battled back a bit in the third, with freshman Rocco Garza-Gongora continuing his productive stretch with a solo home run.

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— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) March 18, 2023

The score stayed at 3-1 at four innings. But, it was that point that the team in purple started to pull away.

In the fifth, the Horned Frogs scored a pair of runs on RBI hits from Austin Davis and Cole Fontenelle.

TCU then struck for three more runs in the following frame, highlighted by a towering solo home run off the bat of Karson Bowen.

In the eighth, the Frogs continued to pour it on with Fontenelle scoring two with a double to make the game out-of-hand at 10-1.

Oklahoma got some of those runs back in the bottom half of the frame, as Dakota Harris crushed a three-run homer to at the very least give OU a little late momentum moving forward.

TCU, however, would continue their onslaught into the final inning by getting those runs right back to bring the score to 13-4.

After Harris tacked on another for OU with an RBI single, the Horned Frogs finished the things off with the final mark at 13-5.

The loss is the Sooners’ second straight and gets them off to an 0-1 start in conference play.

Looking for a big bounce back, Oklahoma will turn to right-hander Braxton Douthit on the mound in the middle game of the series on Saturday at 4 p.m. back at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman.