TCU came into Tuesday night’s game against the Oklahoma Sooners looking for revenge after the teams’ April 12 meeting ended in humiliation for the Frogs. However, TCU’s bid came up short as the Sooners wrapped up a season sweep of the Frogs, prevailing 7-4. Coach Jim Schlossnagle called the loss disappointing but was adamant that the loss was not definitive. “Just like our intro video says, we’re not a team that’s going to be decided by one game or one series.” Andrew Mitchell, who has been stellar this year, picked up his first loss to fall to 3-1. Not a single Horned Frog tallied more than one hit on the day as the team only mustered seven hits to go against four errors. The Frogs have now lost two in a row in a stretch that Coach Schlossnagle refered to as the toughest in the season, a stint of twelve games in fourteen days that continues with a series at BYU starting on Friday.
The Sooners opened up the scoring in the first. Caleb Bushyhead doubled to right field with one out and advanced to third on a passed ball. He scored off of a Garrett Buechele single. OU added two more in the second off an inning that included a single hit and three errors on the part of the Frogs. Cale Ellis was hit by a pitch and advanced all three bases off of the three throwing errors, committed by Taylor Featherston, Jerome Pena, and Josh Elander.
TCU got one back in the second after Elander hit a lead off single. Zac Jordan singled and Elander advanced to third on a Pena sac fly. Aaron Schultz batted Elander in with a long fly ball. Oklahoma got their run back in the third when Casey Johnson brought in Tyler Ogle with a triple. The Frogs escaped the inning with Johnson still on third, however. A Jantzen Witte double was converted into a run in the third with a Jason Coats single.
A Joe Weik homer in the fourth brought the score within one at 4-3. With the exception of a Sooner run in the sixth, that scoreline would remain until the eighth. The Sooners put across an insurance run then and another in the top of the ninth as the TCU bats fell completely silent. Reliever Dillon Overton’s breaking ball perplexed the Frog batters. After Weik’s solo shot, Overton settled down and only allowed one batter to reach base until he was pulled to start the bottom of the eighth.
The bottom of the ninth opened with the 7-8-9 of TCU’s lineup facing a 7-3 deficit. However, the bottom of the lineup loaded the bases off of two hits and an error. Brance Rivera picked up an rbi with a sacrifice fly to right field. Witte seemed poised to start a rally when he tagged Jordan John’s pitch into center field. The ball was a hard line drive but it found its way into the glove of Eric Ross and Taylor Featherston grounded out to end the game.
After the game, Coach Schlossnagle seemed to understand the nature of the game. Like many of the Frog fans, he lamented the myriad fielding errors that have plagued the team all season. However, he was also aware that baseball sometimes comes down to where the balls fall. “We hit a few to center field that we just didn’t have fall the right way. If we had some of the luck they did, it might have been a different game.” Despite the tough loss, Coach Schlossnagle is satisfied with the team’s performance thus far through this stretch of games.