NORMAN – A history-making season comes to an end.
After clawing back to within one win of the super regionals with two elimination game victories on Sunday, No. 9 Oklahoma locked up with UConn one last time in a winner-take-all Norman Regional Game 7 on Monday night at L. Dale Mitchell Park.
While the Sooners entered the matchup seemingly with all of the momentum after the previous day's hard-fought wins, it would be the Huskies who would take control and not let go in this one - taking down OU (40-21) 7-1 to end Oklahoma's bid for a spot in the College World Series.
"We just didn't play very good tonight," head coach Skip Johnson said postgame. "We couldn't ever sustain a rally."
The story of the night was certainly the Sooners' stunning inability to break onto the scoreboard. The offense that was so incredibly good all year long never got it totally revved up over the weekend, with Monday's one-run output being the most extreme case.
"We never could get a leadoff guy (on base) after the first inning," Johnson said. "When you play offense, you got to get leadoff hitters on. Every offense is predicated on getting leadoff hitters on."
Very similar to OU's loss to UConn on Saturday night, the bats fell victim to a medley of hard-hit balls that found gloves and strong defensive play by the Huskies. No matter what happened, UConn always seemed to manage to slip out of every inning unscathed.
"(We had) a couple hard hit balls," senior left fielder Kendall Pettis said. "Umpire was giving a ball or two away so (UConn starting pitcher Gabe Van Emon) kind of took advantage of that. I feel like we just had to cover a little bit more of the plate…He pitched well, he pitched his ass off. We just couldn't get anything going."
On the mound, the Sooners entered the day in pretty good shape all things considered thanks to the heroics of Grant Stevens and Jett Lodes in Sunday's pair of wins. To get things started, OU went with right-hander Carson Atwood (1-1) - who would turn in a solid outing.
The veteran worked into the fourth inning scoreless before getting tagged by a two-run homer by Korey Morton that put the Huskies in front. Atwood then appeared to have navigated through the rest of the inning with a strikeout to close the frame, but the ball got away on a dropped third strike that allowed Tyler Minick to reach base.
The Sooners then brought in left-hander Carter Campbell to operate with the two-out baserunner. But, the two-out mistake would quickly come back to haunt OU as Maddix Dalena crushed a two-run shot of his own to double the advantage to 4-0.
"It kind of took the wind out of our sails," Johnson said about the two-out error and subsequent two-run homer. "We just picked a bad day to play bad."
One inning later, UConn would add two more runs on a pair of RBI knocks from Luke Broadhurst and Morton. The lead had now ballooned out to 6-0.
Huskies added another run in the eighth before Oklahoma would attempt to muster a rally in the ninth. The Sooners, always battling until the end, would load the bases with nobody out to get the fans at L. Dale Mitchell Park on their feet.
But, UConn managed to limit the damage to just a single run as they closed the book on what was a very impressive performance in front of a hostile crowd. The Huskies will now move on to the super regionals to take on No. 8 Florida State for a spot in the College World Series.
The loss ends Oklahoma's season as they are eliminated from the NCAA Tournament just one victory short of returning to the super regionals for the second time in three years. While certainly a bitterly disappointing end to an otherwise spectacular season, the loss doesn't take away from a widely successful campaign for OU in which they won the Big 12 regular season title for the first time in program history and hosted a regional for the first time since 2010.
"We had a good year," Johnson said. "Proud of the coaches, proud of all of these guys. They set a mark on the program."
"This (year) was a first for everything," Pettis said. "With this being my last year, I've just thought of a lot of the things we did this year. It was phenomenal…I love this team. I love Skip. I love the coaches and I love everybody that's been a part of it. It's just been something special."
The Sooners will now head into the offseason where they will look to replenish the roster from the players who will depart as they get ready for the program's first voyage through the SEC in 2025.
"My vision was to go to Omaha every year," Johnson said. "That's what we practice every day for is to win the last game of the year. I think with our support staff and Joe (Castiglione) at the head of it, you can't ask for a better athletic director and a better sport administrator than (Greg) Tipton."
"Our culture is really good. We get after it and we play hard, that's what we're about."
