SOONERS ADVANCE TO FINALS WITH WIN

Oklahoma’s baseball players came to the College World Series calling themselves “a bunch of Davids,” a nod to their embrace of the underdog identity they adopted after an underwhelming start to the season.

Oklahoma 5, Texas A&M 1

It was one David — David Sandlin — who got most of the credit Wednesday for taking down Texas A&M, the last of the national seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

Sandlin held the Aggies to one run and struck out a career-high 12 in seven innings, Jimmy Crooks’ threerun homer in the first held up and Oklahoma advanced to the CWS finals with a 5-1 victory.

Trying to complete a softball-baseball title sweep, the Sooners (45-22) have won three straight games at Charles Schwab Field by no fewer than four runs and will play for their first national championship since 1994.

Oklahoma’s opponent in the best-of-three finals starting Saturday will be either Arkansas or Mississippi. Arkansas beat Ole Miss 3-2 on Wednesday night to force another game today.

As Sooners fans chanted “O-U! O-U!” closer Trevin Michael struck out Brett Minnich to end the game against the Aggies. The celebration was subdued.

“I think those kids are focused,” coach Skip Johnson said. “I don’t know if it’s dogpiling or whatever it is. It’s kind of weird sometimes. I don’t tell them not to dogpile, I can tell you that.”

Texas A&M (44-20) finished 2-2 in the CWS under first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle after going 2927, winning only nine Southeastern Conference games and not even qualifying for the league tournament in 2021.

Arkansas 3, Mississippi 2: Brady Slavens’ home run to the deepest part of the park gave Arkansas the lead and the Razorbacks held on after Mississippi loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.

The Hogs (46-20) forced a second bracket final against Ole Miss (39-23) today, with the winner advancing to play Oklahoma in the best-of-three championship round beginning Saturday.

For eight innings, Arkansas shut down an offense that had produced 64 runs in its first seven tourney games.