The Baylor Bears went 22-1 against Big XII schools not named Oklahoma this season. Against the Sooners Baylor was 0-4 going into Saturday mornings Big XII Tournament games. The Bears would need to beat OU twice to reach Sunday's championship while Oklahoma need only to win once. Baylor was never close as they dropped their fifth game to the Sooners in 2012, moving OU on to face the winner of Missouri/Kansas for the conference title.
Oklahoma took a 3-0 lead in the top of the second when Jack Mayfield and Caleb Bushyhead started off when back-to-back doubles. Matt Oberste followed up with a home run shot to left field that literally left the park. Oberste then followed up with a solo shot to left field in the top of the fourth, giving the Sooners a 4-0 lead.
Baylor cut the lead 4-1 in the bottom half of the fourth, on a Josh Ludy home run, but that's as close as they would get on the day. The Sooners opened it up again in the fifth to plate three more runs and put the game out of reach. Max White's double scored Cody Reine and Erik Ross and then White scored himself off an Evan Mistich single to right field.
Jonathan Gray continued Oklahoma's trend of outstanding pitching in the tournament. He threw 7.2 innings, allowing two runs off six hits while also striking out six batters. He was relieved by Kindle Ladd who pitched 1.1 innings of scoreless baseball to close out the Bears.
Oklahoma has not used Damien Magnifico (he will start on Sunday) in the tournament and Steven Okert now has two days of rest to be used on Sunday. In a perfect world the Kansas Jayhawks would beat Missouri in the first game of the Saturday afternoon session to force a extra game between the two schools and thus further depleting their bullpens.
First pitch of the championship game will be at 1:00 Sunday afternoon. The game can be seen on FSN.