Oklahoma Outlasts Texas Tech In Elimination Game

News 9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY—The Oklahoma Sooners avoided elimination in the Big 12 Championship tournament with a 3-1 victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

The Sooners entered the elimination game after slipping in the first round to Kansas State 5-4, while Texas Tech came up short against Texas A&M losing 10-5.

After two scoreless innings to start the game, Oklahoma got on the board first in the third off a sacrifice fly by junior Garrett Buechele.

The Sooners began the fourth inning with a big play by junior Cameron Seitzer.With no outs and a 3-1 count, Seitzer blasted a ball over the right field wall for a solo home run, his fourth of the year, to make it 2-0.

Then in the top of the fifth, with no outs and the bases loaded, OU added an unearned run off a balk by Texas Tech relief pitcher John Neely that brought Elliott Blair home.

Through the end of the seventh, the two teams surprisingly had stranded a total of 14 runners on the bases as OU left nine on while Texas Tech had stranded five.

The Red Raiders would plate their first run in the bottom of the eighth as they tried for a comeback. Bo Altobelli got it started with a leadoff single and then four batters later, Nick Popescu singled to right to plate Altobelli.

In the bottom of the ninth with two outs Buechele dove to his right to knock down a line drive down third base to get the win for the Sooners.

Burch Smith lasted a season high 8.2 innings in relief and tallied eight strikeouts as the Sooners used 12 hits of their own to boost them to the 3-1 victory.

Oklahoma will face the loser of the Kansas State vs. Texas A&M on Friday at 7 p.m.