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OU baseball wins 6-5, takes series from Vanderbilt

Eddie On3by: Eddie Radosevich04/12/26

Maybe it was the way OU baseball forced a rubber game. Maybe it was the way in which Skip Johnson’s club found a way to win said rubber game on Saturday. Yet somehow, someway Oklahoma leaves Nashville with a series victory following a 6-5 win over Vanderbilt.

Sure there was nothing pretty about it. But for a team that had lost five of its last six conference games heading into the weekend? And then were dealt a body blow with a late-inning meltdown in Thursday night’s opener? OU responded with a pair of wins over the weekend and now head back to the Sooner State with what seems to be a season-defining weekend, following a go-ahead Kyle Branch RBI single in the eighth inning. 

HEY, HOW YA DOIN’ 

Perhaps most meaningful from Oklahoma’s win on Saturday – and even moreso the weekend– was the offensive production from the bats in a Sooners lineup that needed some positive results the most. 

Jason Walk opened the scoring with his first home run of the season in the third. He also walked two times as well after returning to the top of the lineup this weekend, closing the series with four hits and four runs scored. 

Brendan Brock recorded his 10th multi-hit performance of the season, delivering a two-run single on top of Walk’s blast in the third. 

Deiten Lachance homered twice on the weekend and drove in a run with a fifth inning RBI double.

Kyle Branch followed an RBI single in the fourth with another two-out poke into left that came to be the eventual game winner, scoring pinch-runner Dasan Harris from second. 

Offensive production that Oklahoma has been waiting on through the first half of conference play and the better part of the season. The Sooners walked 10 times, cashing in five of those walks into runs. 

PIECED TOGETHER THROUGH THE ‘PEN 

It took an army of arms to get across the finish line for OU on Saturday. 

Kadyn Leon made his first career start in a Sooners uniform allowing two runs on no hits through three innings. 

Isaac Williams allowed a three run home run in the fifth that tied the game at five following Nate Smithburg’s 1.2 innings of work. 

Then the game fell into the hands of Mason Bixby and Jackson Cleveland. The pair worked the final 4.1 innings allowing a combined one hit, one walk and striking out seven. Bixby was particularly good stranding the go-ahead run in scoring position after taking over in the fifth following Brodie Johnston’s game-tying blast. 

Cleveland nailed down his sixth save of the season, working the final two innings. 

NEXT UP

No. 16 Oklahoma (24-11, 7-8) returns to the Sooner State for a Bedlam showdown at OneOK Field in Tulsa on Tuesday and three-game series versus Missouri at Kimrey Family Stadium next weekend. 

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