Sooners lose opener

By John Shinn
The Norman Transcript

May 17, 2008 01:52 am

— TULSA — It’s doubtful most of Oklahoma’s players have seen the movie “Groundhog Day,” but they can sympathize with the plot.
Friday, the Sooners opened another Bedlam Series and the results remained the same. Oklahoma State jumped out early then cruised to a 7-1 victory at Drillers Stadium. The loss was OU’s eighth straight in Tulsa and seventh straight to its biggest rival.
The only thing that did change was OU’s spot in the Big 12 Conference standings.
The loss shoved the Sooners (31-22-1, 8-16-1 Big 12) back in the place they have been trying so hard to avoid. Kansas State topped Kansas 5-0 Friday and moved ahead of OU for eighth place in the conference standings and the final spot in next week’s Big 12 tournament.
“We’ve definitely backed ourselves into a corner,” OU right fielder Jamie Johnson said.
Like most games, it came down to starting pitching. OSU’s Andrew Oliver (6-2) was solid, and bordered on spectacular, getting the victory. The left hander held OU to seven hits over eight innings. He held OU scoreless over the final seven and recorded seven strikeouts along the way.
“He didn’t miss his spots very much,” Johnson said. “He attacked us with fastballs, just like the scouting report said. The catcher just caught it right where he was set up.”
The Sooners’ best chance was to get to him early. Johnson led off the bottom of the first inning with a double off the left-field wall. He eventually scored on a sacrifice fly.
OU couldn’t scrap together anything else.
It left the bases loaded in the second inning and a runner at second in the fourth. It wasn’t nearly enough against Oliver or the Cowboys (39-14, 17-8).
“We gave him a chance to settle in and they gave him the run support,” OU coach Sunny Golloway said.
OU’s C.J. Blue (6-3) wasn’t able to settle in. The left hander headed for the showers after giving up a leadoff homer to Matt Hague in the top of the fifth. He gave up five runs on nine hits.
Hague’s blast put OSU up 5-1 and came two innings after Thomas Belza gave OSU the lead with an RBI single in the second inning and Donnie Webb padded the advantage with a two-run single.
The Sooners’ pitching struggles aren’t a closely-guarded secret. Friday marked the seventh straight conference series opener in which they’ve allowed six runs or more. They’re 1-6 in those games.
“They came out and executed and I didn’t. That was pretty much it,” Blue said. “You have to tip your cap to them.”
Hague went 3-for-5 and Rebel Ridling went 3-for-5 with a home run to power the Cowboys’ 14-hit night.
OU didn’t have that kind of pop. Only one of its eight hits went for extra bases.
Hardly the way the Sooners wanted to begin.
“We know we have to go win tomorrow,” Golloway said. “That has to be our focus. We’ll look at Sunday when it arrives, but we have to figure out a way to even the series.”
The series shifts to Oklahoma City’s Bricktown Ballpark at 7:30 tonight. It will be a must-win game if the Sooners want to control their own Big 12 tournament fate.
Then again, the Sooners have been waking up to that reality for the last month. Nothing has changed.
John Shinn
366-3536
jshinn@normantranscript.com