OMAHA, Neb. — Oklahoma moved within one victory of its first national championship in baseball since 1994, continuing a remarkable postseason run with a 9-3 win Saturday against North Carolina in Game 1 of the College World Series finals.The Sooners (42-22), 11th-place finishers in the SEC during the regular season, eliminated Georgia Tech, the No. 2 seed in the NCAA postseason, No. 15 Kansas and No. 3 Georgia en route to this best-of-three championship.The Tar Heels (53-13-1), seeded fifth in the 64-team tournament and seeking a first title in their 13th CWS appearance, cruised into Saturday in similar fashion to the Sooners. But OU outplayed the ACC runners-up in the crucial early innings at Charles Schwab Field.Catcher Deiten Lachance homered twice, the fifth player in the history of the CWS finals to record a multi-homer game. And true freshman left-hander Cord Rager rebounded from a rocky start to throw 100 pitches in five innings. He left with a five-run lead.A 6-foot-5, 231-pound catcher from Sherbrook, Quebec, Lachance has homered six times in the postseason. He’s hit all of his team-leading 18 homers over the past 32 games in his first season out of junior college.
The Sooners’ late surge began even after Lachance started launching homers with his giant hacks. OU lost its final four SEC series and dropped its only game in the league tournament, against LSU, before the magical run commenced.Oklahoma gained a newfound swagger behind three true freshman starting pitchers, two of whom did not start regularly until the postseason.Rager held a weekend starting job in SEC play. But he looked Saturday as if he might not survive the first inning.After OU scored twice on Lachance’s first home run, North Carolina greeted Rager with four consecutive hits. He allowed two runs before securing an out and three total runs in the opening frame.Rager then limited North Carolina to one hit over the next four innings.Meanwhile, the Tar Heels’ battle-tested ace, junior Jason DeCaro, surrendered seven earned runs in 3 2/3 innings. He’d not allowed more than three earned runs in any of his 18 previous starts this year.“They just really punished the mistakes,” DeCaro said.Lachance’s second homer left his bat at 105 mph and flew into UNC’s left-field bullpen in the third inning. Kyle Branch delivered the key hit after an 0-for-11 start in Omaha. The two-run single with two outs ignited a four-run fourth inning against DeCaro that blew it open for OU.North Carolina coach Scott Forbes said he’s confident that his team will respond after its first loss in Omaha.“This team’s come too far,” he said. “I trust them. We believed in what we believed in all year. I’m going to tell them tonight, we did it all year. I’m not going to go in there and try to pump them up. I don’t need to do that with this team.The Sooners have won nine consecutive games, their longest streak of the season. In fact, they didn’t win more than four consecutively in the regular season after SEC play opened on March 13.Game 2 of the championship series is set for Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET. A win for Oklahoma on Sunday or Monday would secure a seventh consecutive baseball national championship for the SEC.
