OU Baseball: Kyson Witherspoon Throws Gem as Oklahoma Advances to SEC Quarterfinals

A gem from Kyson Witherspoon and timely small ball allowed Oklahoma to advance on Wednesday.

The Sooners (35-19, 14-16 SEC), the 12-seed in the SEC Tournament, beat 5-seed Georgia 3-2 to advance to the conference quarterfinals. 

Witherspoon, a junior playing his second season at OU, kept the Bulldogs in check, helping the Sooners win the low-scoring game.

The pitcher logged a season-high 7 ⅔ innings and was excellent throughout the entire outing. Witherspoon allowed five hits and two earned runs in the near-complete game, striking out eight Bulldogs.

Witherspoon surrendered just one run in his first seven innings, and that came on a sacrifice fly. Georgia’s Henry Hunter hit a solo home run off of him in the eighth inning, and OU coach Skip Johnson subsequently pulled Witherspoon in favor of reliever Jason Bodin.

Witherspoon got the win, and his record improved to 10-3 on the season. His ERA improved to 2.47.

Closer Dylan Crooks finished the game on the mound for Oklahoma, earning his 14th save of the season. Crooks retired the first two Bulldogs that he faced before hitting Georgia’s Nolan McCarthy with a pitch. The reliever, though, got Ryan Black to ground into the final out the next at-bat.

Offensively, the Sooners took advantage of small ball and Georgia’s miscues.

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After the Bulldogs (42-15, 18-12) scored the game’s first run in the third inning, Oklahoma tied the game in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fry from Brayden Horton. The Sooners took their first lead of the game two innings later, when they scored two runs on a fielder’s choice and a single.

Oklahoma recorded seven hits as a team, with Jaxon Willits and Trey Gambill each logging two. Willits’ double was the Sooners’ only extra-base hit.

Georgia walked three Oklahoma batters and committed two errors in the field.

The win is Oklahoma’s third in its last four games. The Sooners opened the SEC Tournament — hosted in Hoover, AL — with a 5-1 win against 13-seed Kentucky in the first round. OU lost its regular-season finale against Texas on Saturday, but the Sooners beat the Longhorns on Friday.

Oklahoma had lost five games in a row before winning Game 2 in the series against Texas.

Next for Oklahoma is a quarterfinal matchup against Vanderbilt, the 4-seed in the SEC Tournament, on Thursday. The Commodores had the first two days off because of their seeding, entering the tourney with a 19-11 conference record.

Oklahoma and Vanderbilt will play shortly after the conclusion of the quarterfinal game between Tennessee and Texas, which is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.