Oklahoma State Baseball Advances To Tourney Semifinals
ARLINGTON, Texas – Oklahoma State staved off elimination once again Friday at the Big 12 Championship as the fourth-seeded Cowboys knocked off top-seeded TCU, 8-4, at Globe Life Field.
With the win, the No. 7 Cowboys (38-19) advanced to the tournament semifinals, where they will have to defeat Texas twice Saturday to earn a berth in Sunday's title game. OSU will face the Longhorns at 9 a.m. and with a win would force a second contest scheduled for a 4 p.m. start.
Roman Phansalkar came up huge for the Pokes in the win over the No. 8 Horned Frogs as he came out of the bullpen in the third and worked five innings, allowing just one run on two hits and tying a career high with six strikeouts.
In improving to 6-2 on the season, Phansalkar was dominant, retiring 14 of the last 15 batters he faced, including the last eight in a row.
Offensively, OSU was fueled by the bottom of its order as the 7-8-9 hitters – Marcus Brown, Caeden Trenkle and Chase Adkison – combined to go 7-for-13 with four RBIs, two runs and two stolen bases. Trenkle led the way with a 3-for-4, three-RBI effort.
TCU (36-20) took the game's initial lead early on, striking for a pair of runs on three hits in the first inning against OSU starter Mitchell Stone, and the Frogs increased their lead to 3-0 in the second with a two-out RBI single by Elijah Nunez.
The Cowboys got on the scoreboard in a big way in the third when Griffin Doersching smashed a two-run home run to straightaway center field. The round tripper was his 13th of the season, tying him for the team lead, and made the score 3-2.
OSU wasn't done. After loading the bases with one out, Trenkle was hit by a pitch to bring home the tying run, and Adkison followed with an RBI fielder's choice to give the Pokes a 4-3 advantage.
The lead did not last long, however, as TCU collected a pair of doubles off Phansalkar in the bottom of the third to knot the score at 4-4.
The Pokes rallied again in the fifth, posting four runs on four hits to regain the lead. After loading the bases to open the inning on two singles and a hit by pitch, Trenkle plated a pair of runs with a single through the right side to put OSU back on top. Two batters later, another two-RBI single, this one off the bat of Zach Ehrhard, extended the Cowboys' advantage to 8-4.
That was all the Pokes would need as the bullpen squashed any hopes of a TCU comeback.
Ryan Ure would spell Phansalker to open the eighth and struck out the lone batter he faced before Kale Davis came on and picked up a pair of strikeouts to end the inning.
Nolan McLean took the mound and worked a perfect ninth, also collecting two strikeouts, to seal the win.