Cowboys Drop Bedlam Series Finale

Sunday, May 3

Oklahoma City, Okla.

4:00 PM

Oklahoma State University

31-15, 0

Oklahoma

30-21, 0

Oklahoma State

Oklahoma

May 03, 2015 | Cowboy Baseball

Box Score

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma State came up short of a Bedlam Series sweep Sunday as the 11th-ranked Cowboys dropped the series finale to No. 25 Oklahoma by a 5-3 score at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.

The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Cowboys as they fell to 31-15 overall and 14-7 in Big 12 Conference play. OSU has won five consecutive Bedlam Series but hasn't swept the Sooners since 2007.

OSU smacked a pair of home runs Sunday, but it was a long ball that did in head coach Josh Holliday's Cowboys as Anthony Hermelyn delivered a two-out, two-run shot off Tyler Nurdin in the seventh that proved to be the difference.

Like it did in each of the first two games of the series, OU (30-21, 11-7) took a lead in its first at bat as the Sooners took advantage of freshman Carson LaRue's struggle to throw strikes.

Following a walk and a double to put runners on second and third with one out, Hermelyn brought home OU's first run with an RBI groundout. The Sooners would then load the bases on a hit by pitch and a walk before LaRue pitched out of the jam by striking out Austin O'Brien.

The Sooners doubled their lead in the second on another RBI groundout, this one from Craig Aikin, to go up 2-0, but that was all they would get as Trey Cobb came out of the OSU bullpen and stifled the OU hitters over the next 4 1/3 innings.

After failing to score against OU starter Robert Tasin over the first four frames, the Cowboys finally broke the shutout, doing it in a big way when Donnie Walton deposited a two-run home run into the bullpen in right field to tie the score in the fifth. The round tripper was Walton's second of the season.

However, OU would answer in the bottom of the inning, plating its lone run off Cobb on yet another RBI groundout from Hermelyn to take a 3-2 advantage.

The lead wouldn't last long as Ryan Sluder led off the sixth inning with a blast over the wall in left-center field. Sluder's team-leading second home run, and his second of the series, tied the score at 3-3.

Things remained deadlocked until the seventh. Nurdin relieved Cobb to open the inning and quickly retired the first two OU hitters. However, a single off the bat Kolbey Carpenter that a diving Sluder nearly held onto in center field was followed by Hermelyn's decisive homer.

The Cowboys would bring the tying run to the plate twice in the eighth inning before a pair of strikeouts by Jacob Evans pulled OU out of the jam, and in the ninth, Ralph Garza Jr. struck out the side to seal the win.

OSU finished with just five hits in the contest while striking out 12 times against three Sooner pitchers.

With the loss, Nurdin fell to 2-3 on the season, while Evans was the winner to move to 5-0. Garza's save was his second of the year.OSU returns to action Friday when the Cowboys open their final Big 12 series of the season against West Virginia at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium.