By Ashley Stadnicki
For about two innings Friday night, it looked like Tennessee baseball had accidentally wandered into a horror movie. And then the Vols remembered they can hit baseballs about 700 miles.
After Oklahoma jumped out to a 3-0 lead behind early chaos, bunts, and a Jason Walk solo homer, Tennessee flipped the entire game on its head with one explosive third inning at Bricktown Ballpark.
Blake Grimmer got the comeback started with an RBI double, Reese Chapman ripped another run home into the gap, and suddenly the Sooners were hanging on by a thread. Manny Marin tied it with a sac fly before Blaine Brown got Tennessee ahead with his RBI single that completed a four-run avalanche.
Of course, because this game refused to behave normally, Oklahoma answered immediately.
The Sooners tied it at four, reclaimed the lead at 5-4 after a messy fourth inning, and for a moment, it felt like Tennessee might let the opener slip away. Then Levi Clark stepped in in the fifth and absolutely detonated a two-run homer to left field that gave the Vols the lead back for good.
Not to be outdone, Henry Ford added his own two-run moonshot an inning later, stretching the Tennessee lead to 8-5.
“Got punched in the mouth right out of the gate and good job by our offense by staying in it, stacking a couple of good innings back to back,” said head coach Josh Elander.
But Oklahoma still wouldn’t go away.
Kyle Branch crushed a two-run homer in the eighth to cut the lead to one, turning the final innings into pure stress. Tennessee stranded the bases loaded in the ninth because apparently everyone in orange wanted to age ten years at once, but Marin delivered a massive insurance RBI single before Bo Rhudy slammed the door shut to secure the 9-7 win.
“Gritty is a great word. I love the way they competed,” said Elander. “Just playing good baseball, keeping the ball in front.”
This box score looked like a pinball machine. Tennessee: nine runs, eight hits. Oklahoma: seven runs, 12 hits. Approximately 47 heart attacks across Vol Nation.
Tennessee improves to 14-14 in SEC play after surviving one of the wildest back-and-forth games of the season and a game that puts the Volunteers in a prime position to ease into NCAA Tournament conversations – especially if they claim the series on Friday.