Follow The Oklahoman’s coverage of the OU-North Carolina NCAA baseball tournament game in the Chapel Hill Regional final.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Staring elimination in the face Sunday, maybe Oklahoma was riding the momentum of their late-game revival from one night earlier.
Powered by two home runs from junior catcher Easton Carmichael, the Sooners made quick work of former conference rival Nebraska, striking for three runs in the first and six more in the third en route to a 17-1 elimination of the Big Ten champions.
The win sent Oklahoma (37-21) into a rematch with North Carolina (44-12), and the Sooners needed to win that game and another Monday with the Tar Heels to claim the Chapel Hill Regional of the NCAA baseball tournament and advance to a super regional.
UNC coach Scott Forbes has announced that senior right-hander and No. 3 starter Aidan Haugh (5-4, 3.74 ERA) will be on the mound for the Tar Heels. OU coach Skip Johnson said he would have to meet with his staff before deciding on his pitching plans.
On Saturday night, the Sooners had fallen behind North Carolina 9-0 after five innings but got their offense untracked late to make the final count a more respectable 11-5.
Johnson praised the never-say-die attitude then, and maybe he was onto something. Over the last four innings against UNC and the first six against Nebraska, the Sooners exploded for 20 runs.
“Absolutely, there’s no doubt about it,” Johnson said after the rout of the Huskers. “Once we broke that and stopped trying so hard and just started competing, it was a big difference. And I thought it was a great example of it today when those guys got big hits in big moments and just kind of sustained the rallies.
“Even though we forced some mistakes on them, we kind of sustained the rally and ran the bases really well.”
On a day when the Sooners banged out 18 hits, including eight for extra bases, defensive shortcomings by the Cornhuskers (33-29) set the tone early. Nebraska committed five errors, three of them in the first inning that helped OU to 3-0 lead.
“Obviously, we didn’t play very well, especially in that first inning,” Nebraska coach Will Bolt said. “We didn’t get off to a good start, didn’t pick each other up. And give credit to Oklahoma. They capitalized on our mistakes.”
Bolt admitted he was surprised by the defensive meltdown.
“We’ve played at such a high level, especially defensively, it’s very uncharacteristic of our team to play that kind of defense,” he said. “So, yeah, there was no indication that was coming. … And it just snowballed from there.”
There were plenty of offensive standouts for the Sooners, but the biggest was Carmichael, a second-team All-SEC pick this season and a third-team All-American a year ago.
Carmichael ignited the six-run rally in the third when he blasted the first pitch of the inning from left-hander Will Walsh (4-8) into the screen behind the left-field wall for his 16th home run.
He bettered that effort in the sixth as the first batter that reliever Jalen Worthley faced, launching a towering three-homer over the scoreboard in left center. The blast traveled an estimated 413 feet and capped a five-run rally that made it 15-0 at the time. His two homers gave him three for the regional and 17 on the season.
“He’s a good offensive player, and he’s gotten better and better and been a leader,” Johnson said of Carmichael. “It showed today. He had some really great swings on some good pitches.”
Sam Christiansen, who sparked the OU offense Saturday night with an RBI pinch-hit double in the loss to UNC, went 3 for 5 with two doubles and a triple, worth two RBIs.
Jaxon Willits, who had had a quiet regional to this point, was 2 for 5 with three RBIs and contributed a key two-run, bases-loaded single in the first. Drew Dickerson, Kyle Branch, Trey Gambill and Dawson Gillis also had two hits each, with Branch adding two RBIs.
The beneficiary of all of the offense was junior left-hander Cade Crossland (5-5), who threw seven solid innings before freshman Michael Catalano finished up. Crossland struck out nine, walked two and scattered five hits before an infield error helped the Huskers break through for an unearned run in the sixth on a bases-loaded infield single by Dylan Carey.
“You really don’t realize how tough it is when you’re sitting in the dugout for 15, 20 minutes at a time to go out and stay focused on throwing strike one,” Johnson said of the junior left-hander. “I think that he showed a great example of doing that (today).”
For his part, Crossland said he didn’t mind watching his teammates hammering balls into the gaps and circling the bases.
“It’s fun to watch those guys just play with everything they’ve got out there,” Crossland said. “And it makes it easy to pitch because you know they’re working hard behind you, just rallying the whole team in the dugout. It makes it fun.”
Despite relegation into the losers’ bracket following their loss to UNC on Saturday night, the Sooners still have a way forward to win the regional and even host a super regional.
The Chapel Hill Regional is paired with the Eugene Regional, where host Oregon, the No. 12 national seed, has already been eliminated. No. 2 regional seed Arizona is in the driver’s seat in Eugene, unbeaten after two games. But if the Sooners, also a No. 2 regional seed, can pull off two more wins with their backs to the wall, they could earn host privileges over Arizona.
Chapel Hill Regional schedule
All times are Central
Friday, May 30
Saturday, May 31
Sunday, June 1
- Game 5: Oklahoma 17, Nebraska 1
- Game 6: No. 5 North Carolina vs. Oklahoma, 5 p.m. (ESPN+)
Monday, June 2 (if necessary)
- Game 7: North Carolina vs. Oklahoma, TBD (TBD)
