Junior left-handed pitcher Cade Crossland was faced with a twist this weekend.
Normal series-opening starter, junior right-hander Kyson Witherspoon, had his Friday start pushed back due to “back spasms”, as first reported on Thursday. It forced Crossland to be ready for the series opener against Vanderbilt, with the Sooners on a four-game losing streak heading into Friday.
Crossland excelled and led the No. 19 Sooners (24-9, 6-7 SEC) past the No. 17 Commodores (25-9, 7-6) 9-4 on Friday at L. Dale Mitchell Park. The left-hander picked up his second win of the season and set a season high in strikeouts with eight.
“Everything was working,” Crossland said. “All my pitches felt good. [I] tried a slider for the first time and it worked, so I kept throwing (it). And it was pretty good.”
Crossland threw a season-high 103 pitches on Friday and went 5.2 innings while allowing five hits, one earned run and two walks. Of the 103 pitches, Crossland threw 63 of them for strikes.
7 K CADE 🔥 @CadeCrosslandM4 | OU 4, VU 1 // 📺 SECN pic.twitter.com/rnpuTrT9st
— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) April 12, 2025
The Oklahoma offense also helped Crossland out right away, as the bats woke up for four early runs in the bottom half of the first inning. Up 4-0 heading to the second inning, the sizable lead calmed Crossland down on the mound and executed his pitches.
“We just try to win innings,” Crossland said. “We put up four runs, and then I had to hold the job, go out there and put a zero up.”
The four-run first for OU was the sign of the offense busting out of its dry spell from last weekend against LSU – where they scored four runs in three games – and Tuesday’s 9-1 loss to Dallas Baptist. Seven of the nine hitters recorded a hit, and the Sooners drew an additional six walks.
In a 4-3 game entering the bottom of the seventh, Oklahoma started to pull away with a leadoff home run by sophomore infielder Jaxon Willits. The Sooners put up two more runs in the inning, with sophomore infielder/outfielder Jason Walk scoring the former run from second base on a wild pitch to extend the OU lead.
Walk also flashed in the field, where he made a leaping catch in the eighth inning to rob Vanderbilt of extra bases. Walk went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and fell a home run shy of the cycle after being moved to the No. 5 spot in the lineup.
“I’m just trying to do my job, wherever the case may be,” Walk said. “Whether that’s leadoff, [No. 5 spot], [No. 9 spot], just trying to get on and help my team win.”
j walk wanted a #SCTop10 too 🫨 pic.twitter.com/4pAN5qnTl9
— Oklahoma Baseball (@OU_Baseball) April 12, 2025
Moving to the leadoff spot, junior outfielder Trey Gambill led off the game with a walk and collected a multi-hit performance in the win. Willits, Walk and junior infielder Dayton Tockey joined Gambill as the only Sooners who collected multi-hit performances in Friday’s win.
In the midst of the four-game skid, Walk, along with the rest of the team, still embraced the usual offensive plans.
“We haven’t been hitting it well,” Walk said. “So just stay to our approach and stay who we are. Not really change anything and let it go.”
It helped having a solid offensive performance against the Commodores – who had the sixth best team earned run average coming into Friday – to gain back momentum the Sooners will need down the stretch of the season, beginning with game two of the series at 4 p.m. on Saturday at L. Dale Mitchell Park on SEC Network.
“It shows you the work that they put in the last three, four days,” head coach Skip Johnson said. “You didn’t see the benefit from it on Tuesday night, but we worked extremely hard.”
This story was edited by Josh McDaniel.
