Sooners Use Late Surge to Power Past Missouri

Originally Published: Apr 9, 2010 9:34 PM CDT

Corey DeMoss
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

NORMAN, Oklahoma – After fighting through an evenly matched start, the OU baseball team pulled away in the seventh inning on the way to a 6-4 victory over Missouri Friday.

Both teams started the scoring in the first inning, with Missouri (17-12, 2-5) taking an early 1-0 lead thanks to a sacrifice fly by Dane Opel. The Sooners (24-6, 4-4) responded with two runs of their own in the bottom of the inning on a two-run single by Jack Mayfield.

OU extended its lead to 3-1 with a sacrifice fly by Cameron Seitzer in the bottom of the third, but Missouri immediately answered with a sacrifice fly by Michael Liberto to cut the advantage back to one.

The Tigers tied the game in the seventh inning with an RBI single by Brett Nicholas, but the Sooners responded with their biggest inning of the night in the bottom of the frame.

Ricky Eisenburg reached based thanks to a throwing error and scored on another sacrifice fly, this time by Max White. Cameron Seitzer finished the inning with a two-run home run to stretch the advantage to 6-3.

The Tigers scored a run in the top of the ninth thanks to the fourth sacrifice fly of the game, but Aaron Senne mistakenly tried to advance to second on the throw and was picked off to end the game.

Zach Neal turned in a strong pitching performance for the Sooners, giving up two earned runs on nine hits in eight innings of work. Ryan Duke got off to a shaky start in the ninth, but the game-ending double play gave him his 10th save of the season.

The Sooners have now won two games in a row after suffering through a three-game sweep against Texas. They will continue their series against Mizzou at 2 p.m. Saturday.