OU Baseball: Oklahoma Wilts as North Carolina Overpowers OU Ace

Oklahoma’s Witherspoon brothers reversed roles this weekend in the NCAA Tournament.

No. 3 starter Malachi Witherspoon, who posted a 1-8 record in SEC play with a 6.08 earned run average, dominated Nebraska on Friday night at the Chapel Hill Regional.

Then ace Kyson Witherspoon, who went 5-3 against the Southeastern Conference with a 2.98 ERA, was rocked for six unearned runs in the first inning against host North Carolina on Saturday.

Baseball can be weird sometimes.

Kyson Witherspoon’s early struggles against the Tar Heels eventually became an 11-5 Sooner loss at Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill, as the No. 5 national seed Tar Heels rolled to an easy victory.

OU fell to 36-21 on the season, while UNC improved to 44-12.

The No. 2-seed Sooners now face elimination Sunday in an 11 a.m. CT rematch with Nebraska. OU beat the 3-seed Cornhuskers 7-4 in their first-round game on Friday after jumping on top 7-0. The Tar Heels await the survivor of that contest Sunday at 5 p.m. CT. Nebraska eliminated 4-seed Holy Cross 4-1 on Saturday morning.

After OU left a runner in scoring position in the top of the first, North Carolina most certainly did not in the bottom of the first.

Kane Kepley reached on what would become a fatal error by Dawson Willis, but Witherspoon quickly retired the next two hitters.

That would be the Sooners’ only highlight early.

Two-out singles from Gavin Gallaher, Hunter Stokely, Alex Madera and Tyson Bass staked UNC to a 3-0 lead — all unearned due to the error at third base.

That’s when right fielder Sam Angelo broke it open with a three-run home run to left field that made it 6-0.

“Just figuring out what we’re doing,” OU coach Skip Johnson said during a fourth-inning in-game interview with the ESPN broadcast crew. “If we play good catch in the first inning, I think he throws six pitches. They took the momentum and we’ve gotta get some momentum back.”

Witherspoon’s previous season high for runs allowed — for an entire game — was four (twice). The Tar Heels scored six in their first eight batters.

His previous season-high for hits allowed was six (four times), but UNC had seven after loading the bases again in the second inning. 

The Sooners were chasing the scoreboard rest of the night, and that was a tough task against Carolina hurler Jason DeCaro, who came into the weekend with a 10-4 record and a 3.42 ERA. DeCaro went six innings, allowed three runs on seven hits and struck out eight while walking none.

UNC added a run in the fourth to make it 7-0 on Gallaher’s RBI single to score Kepley, but things got really out of hand in the fifth.

Bass and Angelo hammered back-to-back solo home runs to extend the Tar Heels’ lead to 9-0 and end Witherspoon’s night.

Witherspoon hadn’t given up more than one home run in a game all season, but he served up three on this night. His four-inning start also tied his shortest outing of the season (he threw four innings at Alabama on March 28).

Witherspoon finished the night yielding a season-high 10 hits and nine runs — three earned — and tied both his season-low with just four strikeouts and his season-high with three walks.

“Kyson’s been really good for us all year,” Johnson said.

The Sooners finally answered with a pair of runs in the sixth on Sam Christiansen’s RBI double and Kyle Branch’s RBI groundout.

But North Carolina answered immediately with a run in the bottom of the inning when Gavyn Jones gave up a hit batter, a wild pitch and an RBI single by Madera to make it 10-2.

OU plated another run when Drew Dickerson opened the seventh with a single, advanced on back-to-back ground-ball outs and came home on Trey Gambill’s RBI single up the middle to cut it to 10-3.

Again, however, the Tar Heels answered when Beau Sampson walked Angelo to lead off, then misfired a pair of wild pitches and eventually gave up an RBI single to Carter French for an 11-3 lead. 

OU made it 11-4 in the eighth when Christiansen drew a one-out walked, took second on a passed ball and scored on Dasan Harris’ RBI single to left.

Jaxson Willits make it 11-5 in the ninth when he delivered an RBI single to score Jason Walk.

Left hander Cameron Johnson came in to pitch the eighth for OU. Johnson, a weekend starter over the first seven weeks of the season after transferring from LSU, hadn’t made an appearance on the mound since April 13 and had only thrown 20 innings total in 2025.