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The Sooners rode freshman Xander Mercurius and gets a save from Jackson Cleveland to knock the Bulldogs into the loser's bracket against Texas.
After OU closer Jackson Cleveland came in to record a five-out save by getting a deep fly ball from the nation's best hitter with the tying run at second base and the winning run at first, the Sooners celebrated another victory and a good shot at returning to the CWS Championship Series.in the eighth.
For Jackson, it was his 32nd of the season. Hudson hit his 22nd. But for Ishikawa, it was just his third. But it wasn't over until Cleveland came in to dramtically record his ninth save of the season.
Mercurius said Sunday he was “not afraid” of the Bulldogs’ big numbers, and he seemed to gain confidence from charting pitches in the Sooners’ opening-round win over Alabama the night before. On Saturday, the 6-foot-6, 237-pound left-handed Rager needed just 88 pitches to finish seven innings, striking out eight with no walks. He scattered just three hits. The 5-foot-10, 186-pound, right-handed Mercurius wasn’t quite that dominant against a more potent Georgia lineup.
But he was good enough against the prodigious Bulldogs: career-high 7 1/3 innings pitched, 104 total pitches and just six hits and two walks allowed. He finished with a career-high nine strikeouts. Mercurius pickedup his first career college win and finished strong before leaving with one out in the eighth. He struck out four in a row across the sixth and seventh innings to raise his career-high total for the game to nine.
The Bulldogs came into the CWS with arguably the nation’s most productive offense: No. 1 in HRs , No. 4 in the nation in batting average , No. 4 in on-base percentage and No. 2 in slugging percentage But Georgia Tech ranked No. 3, No. 1, No. 1 and No. 1 in those categories, and the OU pitching staff made it out of Atlanta just fine. The Sooners moves on to the bracket finals Wednesday at 6 p.m. The winner there advances to the champ series, where Skip Johnson's Sooners found themselves in 2022.
The Bulldogs , champions of the SEC regular season and the SEC Tournament, play Texas in an elimination game on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Longhorns bounced back from their opening round loss to Georgia by eliminating Alabama 14-2. OU beat the Crimson Tide 9-0 in Saturday’s opener.who finished a complete game by allowing just eight hits but took just his second loss of the season .opened things up with a hit for the second straight game, this time a double off the top of the wall in deep right center field.put a pitch about three feet beyond where Walk’s landed — a two-run home run that built OU’s lead to 3-0.
Georgia finally broke through against Mercurius in the top of the fourth as Ishikawa hammered a two-out, solo home run to right field. After, his 13th of the season. That made it 4-1. , postseason hero in both Atlanta and Lawrence, came on to get the last five outs.entered as a pinch-hitter and was hit by pitch to put the tying run at second base and the winning run at first.
But with two runners on, Jackson's fly ball was caught by Walk in right-center and the Sooners were moving on. John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more.
In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide.
John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association.
John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.
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