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OU Baseball: Oklahoma Scores Pair in Ninth to Beat Alabama and Even Series

Trey Gambill and Easton Carmichael provided late RBIs to win 6-5 and set up Sunday's rubber game.
Guerin Emig|
Oklahoma outfielder Trey Gambill
Oklahoma outfielder Trey Gambill | John E. Hoover / Sooners On SI

Oklahoma broke a tie with two runs in the top of the ninth inning and held on to defeat Alabama 6-5 Saturday, squaring the best-of-3 series heading into Sunday’s rubber game in Tuscaloosa.

Sam Christiansen led off OU’s ninth with a single to left field off Hagan Banks. Dawson Willis greeted Crimson Tide reliever Braylon Myers with a perfect bunt in front of home plate, which he barely beat out to put Sooners on first and second base and nobody out.

Alabama turned Brandon Cain’s bunt into a force-out at third base, before Jason Walk drew a five-pitch walk to load the bases. Trey Gambill drove Myers’ next pitch into right field to score Willis with a sacrifice fly, then Eason Carmichael rolled a single to left field to score Cain. 

OU closer Dylan Crooks wobbled in the bottom of the ninth, walking two, giving up a bloop single and allowing an RBI bounce-out that made it 6-5, but he hit the outside corner with a full-count fastball to strike out cleanup hitter Will Plattner with the bases loaded and two outs. 

Crooks’ eighth save made a winner of reliever Reid Hensley, part of a 1-2-3 bottom of the eighth inning that kept the score 4-4. Hensley and Gavyn Jones came up big after Jason Bodin, OU’s first reliever, could not hold a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh.

The work by OU’s late relievers, and the Sooners’ clutch at-bats in the top of the ninth, rescued a clutch start by Cade Crossland.

Coming off Friday night’s 8-6 series-opening loss in which OU ace Kyson Witherspoon lasted just four innings, Crossland  worked a season-high six innings and struck out a season-high seven hitters. He fanned Justin Lebron, Alabama’s most touted player with 13 home runs and 52 RBIs, twice. He fanned Plattner and Will Hodo, Alabama’s 4- and 5-hole batters, twice apiece.

Before departing with a 3-2 lead, Crossland drew this SEC Network in-game comment from Crimson Tide coach Rob Vaughn: “That change-up is real.”

Crossland did go off-speed often, and mixed in some heat to frustrate Alabama hitters. He threw 96 miles-per-hour to strike out Lebron in the first inning and 94 to whiff Plattner in the fourth.

“He’s just trying to attack the strike zone,” OU coach Skip Johnson told the SEC Network mid-game. “That’s the biggest thing for him.”

Crossland walked just one in his six innings. He never went to a 3-ball count his first time through Alabama’s order. 

He did give up a full-count solo home run to Richie Bonomolo with two outs in the third, but turned around and struck out Lebron on four pitches to end the inning. 

Crossland got consistent support from his defense, and help from several different sources of OU offense.

Gambill had two of the Sooners’ nine hits and scored two runs, one in the top of the first on Dayton Tockey’s two-out RBI single and another on Jaxon Willits’ third-inning sacrifice fly. 

Willits’ runs accounted for 1-0 and 3-0 leads. Christiansen’s leadoff line-drive home run down the right-field line in the top of the second inning made it 2-0, Sooners.

Bonomolo’s homer made it 3-1 in the third, and Garrett Staton’s two-out RBI single in the fourth drew Alabama within 3-2.

Walk’s first hit of the weekend, a one-out single to centerfield, scored Willis to make it 4-2 in the top of the seventh. Alabama followed that in the bottom half by tying the score against Bodin.

The Sooners’ ninth-inning heroics made them 22-4 overall and 5-3 in the SEC. They’ll win their third conference series in as many tries should they take Sunday’s 1 p.m. finale.

Alabama fell to 24-4 and 5-3.

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Guerin Emig
GUERIN EMIG

Guerin is a 25-year Oklahoma sports journalist. He spent the bulk of that time with the Tulsa World, where he partnered with Sooners On SI publisher John Hoover on the OU beat before eventually becoming a columnist. He lives in Tulsa with his wife, Christy, his sweetheart from Booker T. Washington's Class of ‘86.

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