WVU Faces Oklahoma in the Opening Round of the Big 12 Championship
Arlington, TX - As the sixth seed, the West Virginia Mountaineers (33-20, 14-10) meet the third-seeded Oklahoma Sooners (33-20, 15-9) in the opening round of the Big 12 Conference Championship Wednesday night with the first pitch scheduled for approximately 8:30 pm EST at Globe Life Field and will be streaming on ESPN+.
Oklahoma took the regular season series 2-1, outscoring West Virginia 32-8 in the two wins less than two weeks ago. However, the Mountaineers did escape snag a 9-8 decision in the middle game.
The Mountaineers hit .293 in the series while the Sooners batted .359 with five home runs.
West Virginia left fielder Braden Barry takes a lead off second base against Kansas State. The Sophomore has hit six home runs on the season, five coming in the month of May.
Christopher Hall - Sports Illustrated: West Virginia
Oklahoma led the league in runs scored during conference play with 230 runs, while ranking second with a team batting average of .316. Freshman Clark Wallace is hitting a team-leading .377 in league-play.
Tanner Tredaway leads the Sooners at the plate with a .346 batting average on the year, including recording a hit in 10 of Oklahoma's 11 games in May, six were multi-hit games.
The Sooners probable starter on the mound is Carson Atwood (2-3, 5.79 ERA). It would mark his first start of the year and the right-handed sophomore has not tossed more than three innings in a game this season. Additionally, he gave up two runs in 1.2 innings pitched in the loss to the Mountaineers.
West Virginia plans to counter with junior right-hander Jacob Watters (3-6, 5.65). He gave up five earned runs in the 15-1 decision in the series opener to the Sooners. However, a week prior, he retired a career-high 15 batters against Texas.
Austin Davis and Dayne Leonard are leading the Mountaineers at the plate with a .336 batting average while freshman Grant Hussey has bashed a team-leading 10 homers and Victor Scott has a team-best 46 RBIs and a league-leading 38 stolen bases.
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