The Sooner’s bats came alive in game two of the C-Ville Super Regional.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

While yesterday’s game was about pitching, today’s game was about hitting. By the sixth inning 17 runs had already been scored, 10 for the Sooners, 7 for the Cavs—most punctuated by the long ball—a score that would hold for the final out. Game three will be held tomorrow night at 7pm.

The Cavs led briefly in the first inning, thanks to hard hit balls from Dan Grovatt and Jarrett Parker, and then tied it up in the second with sac flies from Grovatt and Steven Proscia. But the Sooners would hold the lead the rest of the way, thanks mostly to Cody Reine, who hit two multi-run homers, a three-run blast that bounced over the right field bleachers in the first, and a two-run blast in the fifth.

It was not a great outing for starting Cavs pitcher Robert Morey. As UVA coach Brian O’Conner put it after the game, “He didn’t have his command today, the ball was flying all over the place.”

Offensively, the Cavs kept pace with the Sooners. In the fifth, following a single by John Hicks and a drawn walk from catcher Franco Valdes, Phil Gosselin hit a three-run homer over the left-field fence in the fifth, which made the fans at Davenport Field go crazy. The Sooners’ lead had been cut to one.

But as O’Conner pointed out after the game, such offensive busts need to be followed by good pitching.

Cavs DH John Barr hits a single up the middle in the eighth inning, but a late-inning rally wasn’t in the cards.
PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR

“When you come back like that,” said O’Conner, “you’ve got to shut them down the next inning.”

Unfortunately, Cav pitcher Justin Thompson, like Cody Winiarski who came in to replace Morley in third, gave up a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning, bringing Neal Davis to the mound for the rest of the game.

From that point on momentum swung the Sooners’ way. Top seven, John Hicks hit into an inning-killing double play. Top eight, Tyler Cannon and Franco Valdes both struck out.

The Cavs have not lost back-to-back games all season, but they’ll have to keep that from happening one more time tomorrow night or else their impressive season will be over.

Asked by a reporter (not this one) if he was worried about the “gods of baseball being against the Cavs,” pointing out several bad breaks in the last two games, O’Conner was quick to nip that one in the bud.

“No, it comes around if you stay positive,” he said. “And hopefully the big guy upstairs will give us a little help along the way.”