Sooners Fall to Kansas State in Shootout

Originally Published: May 1, 2010 10:6 PM CDT

Corey DeMoss
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

NORMAN, Oklahoma – The OU baseball team could not recover from two huge innings and finished with a 14-9 loss to Kansas State at L. Dale Mitchell Park Saturday.

The Sooners (31-12, 9-9) took an early lead when Danny Black drove in a run with a triple for the game’s first score in the second inning. That was the last time OU held the upper hand.

In the third inning, Kansas State (30-12, 10-6) came up with its first monstrous frame. Jake Brown started the scoring with a two-run home run to give the Wildcats their first lead, and Nick Martini extended the lead with a sacrifice fly moments later.

Kent Urban broke the game open with the Wildcats’ second home run of the inning, this time a three-run blast that game them six runs in the frame. OU starter Bobby Shore was chased before finishing the inning, and Jeremy Erben became the first of what would be four relief pitchers brought in by the Sooners.

The Sooners cut the lead back to 6-4 with three runs in the fourth, provided by a two-run double by Caleb Bushyhead and RBI single by Drew Harrison. Ross Hubbard drove in another run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth, cutting things to a one-run game.

The Wildcats responded with another big inning in the fifth, starting with two walks in the first three batters. Daniel Dellasega drove one of them in with a single, but a failed bunt attempt by the next batter gave the Sooners their second out of the inning. That’s when their pitching fell apart.

Pitchers Anthony Collazo and Michael Rocha combined to surrender four consecutive two-out hits, which resulted in four more runs and gave the Wildcats an 11-5 lead. After another KSU run in the top of the eighth, the Sooners came up with their biggest inning in the bottom half.

Bushyhead led off the inning with a home run, and Hubbard added his second RBI of the night on a groundout. Garrett Buechele connected on a two-run triple later in the inning to cut the lead back to 12-9.

Kansas State finished the scoring in the top of the ninth with a suicide squeeze by Ryan Moore and an RBI single by Matt Giller. The Sooners went down in order in the bottom of the inning to finish things off.

Bobby Shore finished with the loss after giving up six runs and six hits in his 2.2 innings of work. Evan Marshall came away with a win, giving up four hits and two runs in 3.1 innings.

The loss ends a four-game winning streak for the Sooners, and the two teams will finish their three-game series at 1 p.m. Sunday.