OU baseball: Sooners can't overcome early deficit, drop series with West Virginia
May 7—A two-and-a-half hour rain delay might have been what Oklahoma needed after falling behind 6-0 in the first three innings of Sunday's decisive game against No. 14 West Virginia.
Still, the Sooners weren't able to respond coming out of the break. After waiting out the rain delay in the bottom of the third inning, the Mountaineers came back out in the fourth and extended their lead to 7-0 on a solo home run by Logan Suave.
Oklahoma bounced back with two outs in the fifth when Bryce Madron drove in Anthony Mackenzie from first on a single to right field. On the next at-bat Dakota Harris brought Madron home on a single to the opposite side of the field.
Kendall Pettis kept the two-out hitting going with an RBI single to cut the Mountaineers' lead to 7-3. Two innings later, West Virginia closed the door on the Sooners' comeback bid, scoring two runs with two outs on the board to take a six-run lead with two innings remaining.
The Mountaineers secured a 9-3 win to lock up the three-game series 2-1.
The Sooners allowed a solo home run in the bottom of the first, before giving up four runs on just two hits in the second. Starting pitcher Carter Campbell hit the first two batters of the inning and would walk one more to set up back to back doubles by Suave and Tevin Tucker.
Madron was three for three at the plate with a walk, a single, a double and a triple. The JUCO transfer went seven for 11 at the plate in three games against West Virginia with three RBI.
The rest of the Sooners' offense went a combined 4-28 at the plate on Sunday. They were walked five times, but left seven base runners stranded.
Carson Atwood, James Hitt and Carson Pierce each saw action on Sunday, with Hitt going the longest at four innings. Hitt struck out five batters and allowed one walk, but gave up four hits and three earned runs over that span.
The loss snaps the Sooners' streak of two straight conference series wins dating back to April 14-16 against Texas Tech.
They'll stay on the road next weekend for a three-game series with Gonzaga. The first game of that series is set for Friday at 8 p.m.
Tarik Masri is the interim sports editor for The Transcript covering OU athletics and area sports. You can reach him by emailing tarik@normantranscript.com
