OU Baseball: Oklahoma Scores Early, Strikes Late to Hold Off Cincinnati

Oklahoma ripped off seven runs in the first inning and Jaxon Willits hit a three-run home run in the eighth as the Sooners defeated Cincinnati 12-8 on Thursday in the Queen City.

In the final series of the regular season, No. 12-ranked OU won the series by winning the second game of a doubleheader behind 13 hits. The season and series finale will be played at 4 p.m. Friday at UC Baseball Stadium.

Newly crowned Big 12 champ OU improved to 34-17 overall and 23-6 in conference play — a program record for wins as a Big 12 team — while UC fell to 30-23 and 16-13.

John Spikerman had four hits, two RBIs and two runs scored and raised his season batting average to .414. Rocco Garza-Gongora went 3-for-3 with three runs scored and two RBIs. Jason Walk delivered two hits for the second straight game.

Kyson Witherspoon (7-3) got the start for OU and allowed five runs on seven hits over five innings. Witherspoon struck out six, walked one and yielded two home runs.

Four relievers backed up Witherspoon, including his brother Malachi, who pitched a scoreless ninth.

Spikerman got the scoring started in the opening frame when he came home on a fielding error — one of two in the game and four on the day by the Bearcats defense.

Willits scored on Jackson Nicklaus’ bases-loaded walk to make it 2-0, and Easton Carmichael came home on Kendall Pettis’ fielder’s choice for a 3-0 lead.

The turntable kept spinning as Walk delivered a two-out single to right to score Carmichael and put the Sooners up 4-0. Garza-Gongora sliced a double down the left field line to bring home Pettis and Anthony Mackenzie for a 6-0 lead, and Spikerman finished the outburst with an RBI single to right that scored Garza-Gongora and gave Oklahoma a 7-0 lead.

Cincinnati answered in the bottom of the first with a solo home run by Kerrington Cross, his first of two bombs in the nightcap.

Hunter Jessee smacked an RBI double in the second to cut OU’s lead to 7-2, and Cross homered again in the third to make it 7-3.

Garza-Gongora came home on Carmichael’s groundout in the fourth to push the Sooners to an 8-3 lead.

Cincy got two back in the fourth when Landyn Vidourek and Cross delivered RBI singles to cut OU’s lead to 8-5.

In the sixth, Spikerman sent Walk home on a groundout for a 9-5 lead.

But in the seventh, UC’s Josh Kross blasted a three-run bomb off Dylan Crooks as Oklahoma’s lead shriveled to 9-8.

As OU’s relief pitching settled in, Willits provided the insurance with his own three-run dinger to give the Sooners a 12-8 lead that held up down the stretch.

Kross finished with three RBIs and raised his Big 12-leading home run total to 19 (he hit two in Thursday’s twin bill opener), and Cross went 3-for-5 with three RBIs.