OU baseball runs out of gas in North Carolina as Sooners’ season ends in NCAA regional
CHAPEL HILL, NC — Simply put,
Oklahoma
just ran out of pitching Monday.
“We threw one, two, three (freshmen) and one guy that threw one inning (this season),” Sooners baseball coach Skip Johnson said. “So, four guys that were really young. We threw everybody on our whole staff today. Everybody had to pitch this weekend.”
It wasn’t nearly enough. North Carolina, the No. 5 national seed, rediscovered its two-out success and added a late power surge to rout the
Sooners 14-4 in the championship game
Monday of the Chapel Hill Regional at Boshamer Stadium.
The Tar Heels (45-13) will host Arizona, the Eugene Regional champ, in a super regional of the NCAA tournament beginning Friday.
Gavin Gallaher, who hit at a torrid pace all weekend, homered twice and drove in four runs for UNC, earning Most Outstanding Player honors in the regional. The sophomore third baseman went 13-for-18 in the regional – an incredible .722 batting average – with three doubles, a triple and three home runs for 10 RBIs. His two big flies gave him 17 on the season.
“He was one of those guys that were really hot,” Johnson said. “I mean, he covered changeups, he covered sliders, he covered fastballs.
“And when a guy’s hot like that, you try to pitch around him, and we couldn’t pitch around him with some men on base.”
Gallaher was joined on the all-tournament team by four teammates: shortstop Alex Madera, center fielder Kane Kepley, designated hitter Sam Angelo, and pitcher Jake Knapp.
Jackson Van de Brake also homered for UNC, and Hunter Stokely added three RBIs with a key first-inning double and a sacrifice fly.
Drew Dickerson hit a two-run homer – his third of the regional and fifth of the season – and Jason Walk added a solo shot for the Sooners (38-22). Junior catcher Easton Carmichael went 2-for-4 with an RBI single and hit .409 for the regional (9-for-22) with three homers.
Carmichael credited Dickerson for having a big tournament.
“People kind of joke that I’m Yoda with Drew,” Carmichael said. “He’s continued to understand who he is as a player, both offensively and defensively. And we talked quite a bit just about approaches, swings, whatever.
“And to see that this weekend was really awesome because I think he came out of his shell a little.”
Carmichael headed the all-tournament list for OU and was joined by first baseman Sam Christensen, left fielder Trey Gambill, right fielder Dasan Harris and pitcher Malachi Witherspoon.
Nebraska second baseman Cayden Brumbaugh rounded out the team.
Two big early rallies by the Tar Heels spelled doom for the Sooners. UNC got three runs in the first when a two-out throwing error by second baseman Kyle Branch kept the inning alive.
Stokely lined his two-run double to the wall in left center, and Madera followed with an RBI single. He finished 3-for-4 with two RBIs.
UNC broke it open with four runs in the third to go up 7-2 when Johnson’s pitching strategy didn’t pan out.
Johnson brought in left-handed reliever Gavyn Jones after Luke Stevenson and Gallaher opened the inning with singles off OU starter Reid Hensley (4-2).
Johnson had success using lefties against the Tar Heels in Sunday’s 9-5 win. With six lefty bats again in the UNC lineup, Johnson opted to try it again.
However, it didn’t pay off this time, as four left-handed batters reached base safely against Jones. Stokely walked on four pitches to load the bases, and another lefty, Madera, beat out an infield single when Christensen slipped after fielding the slow bouncer near first, allowing a run to score.
Tyson Bass bounced into a force play at third for the second out, but two more lefties, Angelo and Carter French, produced RBI singles and forced Johnson to pull Jones in favor of seldom-used junior right-hander Dylan Tate, who was making only his second appearance of the season.
“What you’ve got to do, you’ve got to maximize your bullpen as much as you can, and hopefully he can be in control of himself,” Johnson said of Jones, a sophomore. “And he got a little bit out of control because we had to bring him in with men on first and second. I’d rather bring him in in a clean inning.”
To his credit, Tate was the most effective of the seven pitchers that Johnson used Monday. The junior college transfer from Jefferson College in Missouri missed much of the season with an injury and had pitched only one inning until Monday.
He went four innings against UNC, allowed four hits and just one run, striking out five without a walk to keep the game close.
“It’s his draft year,” Johnson said. “I hope and pray that he comes back because he’s got a really good arm and he’s really talented. I think he can carry some of the load from Kyson (Witherspoon), Malachi (Witherspoon) and (Cade) Crossland.
“We’ve lost our starting rotation four out of the last five years to the draft. I don’t know there’s a lot of Division I teams that happens to, the whole rotation.”
UNC added a run in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Stokely. Van De Brake hit a two-run homer, and Gallaher had a solo shot in the eighth off freshman Jackson Kircher. Gallaher added a three-run blast in the ninth off sophomore Beau Sampson.
UNC Scott Forbes, meanwhile, countered with two freshmen on the mound, but both had seen plenty of work all season. The win went to right-hander Ryan Lynch (5-1), whose only other start came eight days ago against Clemson when he threw four shutout innings in the ACC championship game victory.
Lynch worked five solid innings against OU, his longest outing of the season. He struck out six, walked two and allowed five hits, including Dickerson’s homer.
Right-hander Walker McDuffie covered the final four innings for his team-leading seventh save. He struck out seven, walked two and gave up two runs, including Walk’s homer.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman:
OU baseball runs out of gas in North Carolina as Sooners’ season ends in NCAA regional
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