When a game begins to take a turn, a certain silence descends upon Charles Schwab Field in Omaha. One of those moments occurred on Sunday afternoon; it was a quiet one rather than a loud one, a dramatic swing, or a towering home run. After entering from the bullpen, an 18-year-old threw a ball and struck out three consecutive batters. Something had changed by the time Oklahoma’s hitters returned to the dugout in the fifth inning. The game had changed.
In Sunday’s second game of the College World Series finals, North Carolina defeated Oklahoma 6-2, leveling the best-of-three series at one game apiece and necessitating a winner-take-all on Monday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Tar Heels’ comeback was based on two home runs, a third-inning rally, and five innings of nearly perfect relief pitching from rookie Caden Glauber. With six strikeouts in the first two innings, Oklahoma’s afternoon began promisingly before subtly falling apart.
Ryan Lynch, the starter, left in the fifth due to what looked to be a left oblique injury, and Glauber came in. Lynch had pitched well, limiting the Sooners to two runs in four innings. However, the situation drastically changed as soon as Glauber took the mound. The 6-foot-4 right-hander from Fort Mill, South Carolina, struck out eight batters and held Oklahoma to one hit over five innings by combining a diving slider with a fastball that reached 95 mph. With 28 home runs in 11 games, the Sooners had one of the postseason’s most potent offenses, but Glauber made them seem insignificant. Maybe nobody outside the Carolina program was ready for that.
There was a plausible claim that the Sooners were just superior that afternoon after Oklahoma freshman Xander Mercurius struck out his sixth batter, putting North Carolina behind 2-0 going into the third. Then the situation became chaotic. Mercurius hit one, walked two, and uncorked a wild pitch that allowed the Tar Heels to score a run. After Jake Schaffner’s two-run triple into the right-field corner tied the score at two, Oklahoma’s late-May surge began to wane. In that one inning alone, Mercurius threw fifty pitches without coming out. Finally, the inexperience that had somehow helped throughout the postseason caught up.
Cooper Nicholson followed with a two-run shot in the seventh to extend the lead to 6-2 after Owen Hull added a solo home run in the fifth. Since the start of Super Regional play on June 26, the Sooners had only fallen behind after two of 56 innings; Sunday altered that total.
This weekend’s baseball is accompanied by a more difficult-to-quantify narrative. On Sunday, Father’s Day, first baseman Erik Paulsen amassed three hits while the fathers of his teammates in the stands wore pins with his number 44 on them. The pins paid tribute to Erik Paulsen Sr., a former NYPD detective who passed away on July 4 of last year from throat cancer. From the seats, his mother and grandmother observed. In a quiet conversation, coach Scott Forbes expressed his belief that Erik Sr. was observing. It’s the kind of thing that sits with you but doesn’t determine baseball games.
With a current season record of 54-13-1, North Carolina is just one victory away from winning the first national championship in ACC history. At 42-23, Oklahoma is still vying for its first championship since 1994 and its third overall. Nick Wesloski, another freshman, will receive the ball from the Sooners on Monday. As of yet, North Carolina has not committed to a starter. Forbes stated that everyone who feels well will be available, but Glauber’s 65 pitches on Sunday probably disqualifies him from a starting position.
For both teams, Monday night’s College World Series Game 3 bears the entire weight of a college baseball season. Oklahoma is not a team that gives up easily. After the defeat, designated hitter Trey Gambill stated unequivocally that they still have a chance to win a national championship. Their nine-game postseason winning streak did not end without a fight. That is difficult to dispute. There’s one game left. Everything is still feasible. That’s about as tidy a setup as it gets in sports.
