Alabama and Oklahoma are the Final Two Teams to Punch Their Tickets to Omaha

Although both the Lawrence and Tuscaloosa super regionals were pushed out to Monday because of weather, Alabama and Oklahoma still managed to wrap their series up in two games, with Alabama taking down St. John’s, and Oklahoma taking down Kansas. The two super regional champions will be taking on each other in the opening round of the College World Series in Omaha on Saturday afternoon at 3 PM ET.

Alabama has remained undefeated throughout the tournament thus far, beating Alabama State, USC Upstate, and Oklahoma State in their regional in three games, and are of course coming off a sweep of four seed St. John’s this weekend. It was never particularly close either as the Crimson Tide outscored the Red Storm by a score of 15-2 across the two games. Alabama’s ace and junior right-hander Tyler Fay delivered a gem on Saturday, throwing 7.1 shutout innings on just two hits, three walks, and nine strikeouts. On Sunday (and into Monday), it was junior left-hander Zane Adams coming through with 6.1 innings while allowing just two earned runs on six hits, no walks, and eight strikeouts. Both Fay and Adams gave the Tide the luxury of only having to use two bullpen arms, that being junior left-handers Ashton Crowther and Matthew Heiberger. The two southpaws combined for 4.1 scoreless innings while allowing just one hit and one walk.

Offensively for Alabama, they actually only hit one home run, but the one they did hit was the biggest hit of the series. While up by just one run in the seventh, senior third baseman Jason Torres hit an opposite field grand slam to right field to put Alabama up by a score of 7-2, the same score they would go on to win by. The lineup as a whole combined for eight extra-base hits on the weekend, seven of which were doubles, and 20 hits. For the Tide, they are headed back to Omaha for the first time since 1999 as they are looking for their first national championship in program history.

As for Oklahoma, they didn’t come into the NCAA tournament with quite the same expectations as Alabama, but have performed just as well. On top of shocking the college baseball world by taking down Georgia Tech in the Atlanta Regional a week ago, the Sooners went into Lawrence where they swept up Kansas, a team that was hot with a lot of momentum after sweeping their own regional. Oklahoma has only one loss in the tournament to this point which came in the first winner’s bracket game against Georgia Tech last weekend. Since then, they are 4-0 against Georgia Tech and Kansas.

Like the Tuscaloosa Regional, neither game in Lawrence was particularly close either as Oklahoma outscored Kansas by a score of 21-3 while Kansas never held a lead at any point. The Sooners mashed a total of seven home runs over the weekend. Seniors Dayton Tockey and Trey Gambill both hit a pair of home runs while Camden Johnson, Deiten LaChance, and Dasan Harris got in on the action as well. Juniors Jason Walk and Brendan Brock also added multi-hit performances in both games.

On the pitching side of things, it would be hard to get a better performance out of the Sooners staff than the one they had over the weekend. Freshman left-hander Cord Rager took the mound in the opener, throwing six shutout innings on just one hit and one walk with six strikeouts against a very dangerous Jayhawks lineup. Junior left-hander LJ Mercurius who started most of the season for Oklahoma followed with three innings to close it out while allowing just one run. On Sunday, LJ’s brother Xander got the start, throwing four innings of one-run ball on three hits, two walks, and six strikeouts before handing it over to the bullpen which was excellent the rest of the way. Nate Smithburg, Jason Bodin, and Jackson Cleveland combined for five innings while allowing just one run on one hit and two walks.

It’s fitting that Alabama and Oklahoma will square off in the opening round on Saturday considering this is the only match-up in which both teams actually met in the regular season. The match-up favored Alabama as they went on to take two out of three games from Oklahoma on the road in Norman. This is Oklahoma’s first trip to Omaha since 2022, the year in which they fell to Ole Miss in the national championship. With Ole Miss on the other side of the bracket, should things go right for both teams, they could meet once again in the championship. If the Sooners can continue to ride this current wave they’re on to a World Series win, it would be their third national title in program history, and first since 1994.