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OU baseball opens Atlanta Regional with 8-3 win vs. The Citadel

Eddie On3by: Eddie Radosevich05/30/26

Breakfast and OU baseball pair well, I think. 

Oklahoma freshman left-hander Cord Rager posted a career-high six innings and tied his career high mark by striking out eight on Saturday morning as the Sooners opened the Atlanta Regional with an 8-3 victory over No. 3 seed The Citadel. 

The Sooners opening round victory comes some 14 hours after the scheduled start and marked career-win No. 300 for head baseball coach Skip Johnson at the Division I level.

RAGER SET THE TONE EARLY 

Much like he did in his Sooners debut, Oklahoma freshman pitcher Cord Rager set the tone early on Saturday by limiting Bulldog hitters to any harmful damage. The Citadel opened the scoring, manufacturing a run in the second following a leadoff double. And again in the fourth, stranding a pair of baserunners on the base paths after The Citadel had opened a 3-1 lead. 

Rager’s performance was precisely what Johnson and Oklahoma was looking for to open its stay in Atlanta. 

LJ Mercurius worked the final three innings, allowing just a pair of singles and striking out four. 

Rager and Mercurius combined to strike out 12 Bulldog hitters and didn’t walk a batter. A step in the right direction for the Oklahoma pitching staff that struggled mightily at the end of the regular season.  

SOONERS OFFENSE POUNDS 15 HITS

Every player in the OU lineup reached base in the Saturday morning breakfast edition. A Dayton Tockey home run tied the game in the first. Trey Gambill’s two-run shot tied the game 3-3 in the fourth. And the Sooners bats just kept adding. 

Following Gambill’s game-tying two-run blast in the fourth, OU took its first lead of the day on a Tockey ground ball. Jason Walk’s RBI single in the sixth extended the Sooners lead to 5-3. 

One inning later, Deiten LaChance and Jaxon Willits singles opened the door for the Sooners knockout punch without putting the ball in play. Brendan Brock walked to load the bases. Dasan Harris and Dayton Tockey each looked at pitches out of the zone to plate a pair of runs. 

Dasan Harris finished the day going 3-for-3 with a walk.

WTF ON THE BASE PATHS

Oklahoma made four outs on the base paths in Saturday’s opener. It’s unacceptable. Brendan Brock was caught stealing. Dasan Harris was picked off first base. Deiten LaChance was thrown out at third on an infield single that didn’t get too far away from the second baseman. 

Following the Sooners win Oklahoma head coach Skip Johnson summed it up in a postgame radio interview with Carly Murray. 

“Makes you a little nervous. Makes you want to walk downstairs and smoke a cigarette”

You and me both, Coach. 

SOONERS, GEORGIA TECH WINNERS BRACKET 

Barring more rain in the Atlanta area, Oklahoma now heads into a Saturday night showdown against host Georgia Tech. 

The Yellowjackets did nothing but back up its claim as one of the best offenses in the country in opening round 22-5 win over Illinois-Chicago, blasting a school-record seven home runs. Alex Hernandez led the No. 2 overall seed with nine runs batted in. 

The Jackets 49-9 mark is the best 58-game record in program history. 

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