OU baseball: Sooners hang on for 3-1 win over TCU

Mar. 18—For what it took off the table and for what it put on it, coach Skip Johnson's Oklahoma baseball team captured its biggest win of the season Saturday evening, knocking off No. 18 TCU 3-1.

The narrow triumph means the Sooners (12-7, 1-1 Big 12) cannot be swept by the Horned Frogs (10-8, 1-1) when the two teams return to L. Dale Mitchell Park at 1 p.m. today. Conversely, it also means they can win their opening series of the conference season, even against a consensus top-20 foe.

The victory was a mound operation for the Sooners, beginning with starter Braxton Douthit (3-0). He struck out only two and walked four, but allowing only one hit tossed 6 1/3 innings unscathed, lowering his earned run average to 2.39.

The top of the seventh was TCU's chance to make something happen, when a pair of walks and a wild pitch from Douthit put Frogs at the corners with one out.

Carson Pierce took Douthit's place on the mound and promptly walked Cole Fontonelle, loading the bases. Two pitches out of the strike zone to David Bishop followed, yet on the next pitch Bishop grounded into a 6-4-3 double play and the threat was erased.

Aaron Weber relieved Pierce and picked up a six-out save despite yielding TCU's only run, an eighth-inning home run from Brayden Taylor.

The Sooners did their scoring in the fifth and eighth innings.

John Spikerman's triple plated Kendall Pettis and Easton Carmichael in the fifth. Jackson Nicklaus' sacrifice fly brought home Rocco-Garza-Gongora, pushing OU's advantage back to two runs, in the eighth.

Though he didn't score, nor drive in a run, Sooner shortstop Dakota Harris was the only player on either team to finish with two hits, a single and a double, raising his batting average to a stout .392