Baseball: Sooners Complete Weekend Sweep of TCU

By Kaden Boyd

The Sooners headed to Fort Worth this past weekend where they faced off against No. 12 TCU Horned Frogs.  Coming into this week the Sooners were 3-0 in conference play while the Horned frogs came in with a record of 1-2 in the conference.  On top of that, Skip Johnson was looking to get win number 200 as the head coach of the Sooners. 

Starting off the game was back and forth until TCU was able to get one run across on a Sac fly in the bottom of the second inning which would give the Horned Frogs the lead.  That would not be the case for long, because Michael Snyder would step up to the plate in the fourth inning sending a two run homerun over the right field wall giving the Sooners their first lead of the game.  TCU would quickly take the lead back in the bottom of the fifth inning where they would go on to score two runs off the bat of Logan Maxwell who was able to find a hole in right field.  That would be all the action that we would see until the top of the seventh inning when chaOUs would unleash on the Frogs.  The inning would be a lot of singles that would result in the Sooners plating four runs.  The singles would come from Jackson Nicklaus, Pettis, then an RBI single from Carter Frederick, and then a couple batters later John Spikerman was able to rip a ball up the middle that would end up scoring Kendall Pettis.  That would not be the end of the inning because Bryce Madron and Easton Carmichael would want to get in on the mix getting a pair of singles for themselves as well plating more runs in the process as well.  In the middle of all of this, Kyson Witherspoon was DEALING on the mound where he was able to keep the Frog scoreless after coming in as a relief pitcher.  Kyson would go 5 innings where he was able to get 8 total strikeouts retiring 6 out of the last 7 batters that he faced.  Having Kyson out of the pen has shown to be effective thus far this season and I do not see that stoping anytime soon.  Sooners would take gaem one with a final score of 7-3 to start the series which would give Skip Johnson his 200th win as a Sooner!

Going into game two, it felt as if the Sooners had all the momentum and were ready to go win the series.  This game was truly neck and neck all game and it was a pitchers dual for a long time.  In the bottom of the fourth inning TCU was able to break the scoreless innings by getting a run across on a RBI groundout, and then eventually scoring their second run on a passed ball wild pitch.  OU like always does not go down without a fight.  In the top of the fifth inning, Jaxon Willits would get things going for the Sooners by getting on base on a error which would ultimately score Kendall Pettis from third base bringing the score 1-2 for the Frogs.  In the same inning, Bryce Madron would come up to the plate where he would LAUNCH a ball to right field for a three run homerun giving the Sooners a lead of 4-2.  No like for real, that ball was absolutely torched.  The Sooners were ready to keep the party going late in the game when Scott Mudler was able to send Jackson Nicklaus home on a Sac fly in the top of the 8th inning.  TCU would ultimately come back and tie things up going into the 9th inning now.  To start the inning, Carter Frederick would come up to the plate where he was able to hit a leadoff bomb to dead center giving the Sooners a lead of 6-5 and then shortly scoring one more run after Jackson Nicklaus got himself an RBI groundout to help give the Sooners a 7-5 victory over the Frogs.  This would give the Sooners the series victory over the No. 12 team in the country, and Sooner fans all over twitter/x were going crazy about it!  

For game 3, the Sooners were looking to go for yet another sweep in the Big 12 conference.  In the top of the first inning the Sooners were able to score a pair of runs on a groundout from Easton Carmichael that would end in a wild pitch scoring Bryce Madron.  It was a quite game after that until fourth inning where Jackson Nicklaus was able to get things going early with a leadoff double.  Carter Frederick was looking to add on to his already impressive weekend where he was able to get yet another RBI on a single to right center.  Jason Walk was shortly after him where he was able to not only get his first collegiate hit, but also getting his first RBI sending Carter Frederick home.  Kendall Pettis would close out the inning with an RBI groundout giving the Sooners now a commanding lead of 5-0 going into the bottom of the 4th inning.  Sooners were able to keep the Frogs scoreless and were able to get Snyder up to the plate in the top of the 5th inning where he was able to hit another homerun on the weekend and extend the lead for the Sooners to 6-0.  TCU does not go out without a fight however because in the fifth inning they were able to get a 3 run homerun which would cut the lead in half.  In the very next inning, the Frogs were able to get a solo homerun as well bringing the score to 6-4 now.  Oklahoma went on to close the door getting some insurance runs in the 9th inning where they would end up winning game 3 with a final score of 9-4.  The Sooners have now swept back to back weeks in the Big 12 are are standing alone at the top of the standings after this past weekend.  

Sooners now return home from Texas after going 4-0 in their time there.  Sooners will face off against No. 19 Dallas Baptist who are no strangers to the Sooners after facing off earlier in the season in Dallas where the Patriots were able to beat the Sooners.