Sooners Beat Irish, Advance to Semis

Sunday, June 19

Omaha, Neb.

6 p.m.

University of Oklahoma

44-22

Notre Dame

41-16

Notre Dame

Oklahoma

June 19, 2022 | Baseball

Box Score Highlights Box Score: OU 6, ND 2 Quotes Notes MCWS Central Photo Gallery

By: John Rohde for SoonerSports.com

OMAHA, Neb. – For the third time in the history of Oklahoma baseball, the Sooners have won their first two games at the NCAA Men's College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

The two previous times this transpired, OU went on to finish as Division I national champions in 1951 and 1994.

Will the third time be equally as charming?

The Sooners reached their 2-0 record by posting a 6-2 victory over Notre Dame on Sunday night before a crowd of 24,934 at Charles Schwab Field.

OU (44-22) now gets two days off before playing its next contest on Wednesday at 1 p.m. against the winner of Tuesday afternoon's elimination game between Notre Dame (41-16) and Texas A&M (43-19), both of whom the Sooners already have beaten in Omaha.

Righthander Cade Horton had a career-high 11 strikeouts in 6.0 innings of work, which consisted of throwing a career-high 100 pitches (69 strikes). He scattered five hits, allowed two runs (a two-run homer by David LaManna in the sixth inning to make the score 5-2) and surrendered just one walk.

A redshirt freshman out of Norman High School, Horton sat out last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Horton began this season as a utility infielder and designated hitter before heading to the mound full-time. He has 25 starts at third base, four at shortstop, 10 as the DH and now 10 as a pitcher.

"I think he's going to get better," OU head coach Skip Johnson said of Horton as a pitcher. "I really don't know if he's ready yet, but his freshman fall was incredible. I mean, we're just throwing two innings a week and he's also playing positions. I said it to several people, (he's) one of the best freshman pitchers I've been around, ever. I can remember things that he did in that fall like it was yesterday. Then all of a sudden, the adversity hits him and he really started working."

Horton is 3-0 this postseason (including the Big 12 Tournament) with an ERA of 2.66 and has at least eight strikeouts in four straight games. He became the first OU pitcher to have double-digits strikeouts at the MCWS since Mark Redman in 1994.

In addition to Horton's heroics, redshirt senior centerfielder Tanner Tredaway and redshirt sophomore All-American shortstop Peyton Graham continued their torrid hitting.

Graham tied a career high with four hits, going 4 for 4 and became the first shortstop in a MCWS game to have four hits since LSU's Alex Bergman in 2015. Graham also had two stolen bases (now 34 for 36 on the season) and became the first player since Arizona State's Barry Bonds in 1984 to have four hits and two steals in an MCWS game.

Tredaway went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and scored two runs while extending his hitting streak to 16 games. He has reached base in 39 of the last 40 games, is now hitting .381 and has multiple hits in nine of 13 postseason games.

Switch-hitting freshman third baseman Wallace Clark also had two RBIs and freshman second baseman Jackson Nicklaus went 2 for 4 and knocked in a run with a line-drive single to left to make the score 5-0 in the bottom of the fifth.

Horton has revealed a slider this postseason, which helped keep the Fighting Irish off-balance.

"I developed it Tuesday prior to the Big 12 Championship game," Horton said of the pitch. "And (redshirt junior righthander) Ben Abram is the one who really helped me develop. He gave me the confidence to throw it in a game. And it's been working ever since."

That Abram came to Horton's aide was not surprising to Johnson.

"You see the culture of our team," Johnson said. "Ben's been down there. I taught him how to throw a slider. When you see your teammates teaching each other and not really caring what the outcome of it is but they're really teaching each other, that's when you really have a great culture. And sometimes it will get out of hand. They'll get mad at each other, too, which is great. We're all brothers. We get mad at each other. I think that's great."

With one more victory, OU will advance to the best-of-3 championship series, which begins Saturday at 6 p.m.

"I think we've always thought that ever since we got started and got rolling in the Big 12 Championship," Tredaway said. "I've said it before, I'll say it again, our thing is we want to prove people wrong and make a statement, and we were able to do that in Regionals and Supers, and we want to do that here. And so yeah, to us it's kind of an expectation to do well. And we're rolling right now and we're going to keep riding it."

Horton added, "To back up Tanner with that, I feel with our team we're good at not looking ahead. We're good at staying in the moment and focusing on winning a pitch instead of focusing on the bigger picture. We focus on the task at hand, and I think that's where a lot of our successes came from."

Clark said of winning the national championship, "We've had that in mind from the very beginning and it's not just a new idea. … We had talks with Skip and (assistant coach) Reggie (Willits) and everybody, and the idea was it doesn't matter if we lost (a mid-week game during the regular season), we're still going to go win the whole damn thing."

Notre Dame head coach Link Jarrett said of the Sooners, "They outplayed us in essentially every phase of the game. I thought Horton was outstanding. When you have mid-90s, you have a good slider, you have a curveball, any flashes change periodically. I mean, that was a lot. Clearly we didn't recognize it. I thought he did just a phenomenal job. I thought he mixed very well. And when you have that assortment of pitches to deal with, it's difficult. And clearly it was."

Redshirt junior righthander Jaret Godman, making his first appearance this postseason, relieved Horton in the seventh and struck out two batters. Graduate senior righthander Trevin Michael then worked two scoreless innings to close out the win.

"Godman, they had the matchup they wanted to allow him to throw that inning. He did a nice job," Jarrett said. "And Michael is similar to Horton, I think. Maybe not quite the fastball, but really the good little breaking ball and a slider and a change that he uses and uses well. Their hitters did a nice job. They used all phases of their game. They ran bases. We knew this was something that was in play for them. They're good at it."