Hitting the road
O’Brien, Sooners heading to Louisville for regional series
NORMAN — Austin O’Brien began to wonder if he’d ever get the chance to play in an NCAA Regional.
He wondered it early in the season when the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow snapped after a collision at first base.
The Oklahoma first baseman wondered again when he returned only to have the Sooners fall into a slump that put their status as an at-large team in the field in doubt.
But as team after team popped up onto the television screen inside the home clubhouse at L. Dale Mitchell Park on Monday, O’Brien had no doubt his Sooners were in. The only question was where they’d go.
That finally got answered in one of the final regionals announced as Oklahoma will be the No. 2 seed in Louisville.
The Sooners will open the tournament at 1 p.m. Friday against Xavier. Louisville will open against Radford.
“I’ve waited a long time for this feeling,” O’Brien said. “I’m pretty excited.
“With all the projections and all the different places they said we might go, Louisville was one place I’d never really heard so I was a little surprised to see us up there. At the same time, I was excited to see Oklahoma on the screen.”
O’Brien is the team’s elder statesman, having joined the program in late 2013 as part of Pete Hughes’ first recruiting class in Norman.
“Let’s go get this one for Austin O’Brien, no doubt,” sophomore pitcher Jake Irvin said as he wrapped up media interviews following the announcement.
This is also Hughes’ first regional as Oklahoma’s head coach and his first since the 2013 season when the then-Sunny Golloway coached Sooners beat Hughes’ Virginia Tech team in Blacksburg, Virginia, to advance to the Super Regional.
Hughes had lobbied for a home regional heading into last week’s Big 12 Tournament.
But a two-game Bedlam sweep to end the regular season followed by a two-and-out performance in the tournament left the Sooners not only heading onto the road but to play the No. 7 national seed in Louisville.
“We made our own bed as far as the hosting,” Hughes said. “I can’t gripe about not hosting. We didn’t play good at the end and wherever they put us, honestly — you could say we’re the No. 3 team in the No. 1 rated conference getting put to a national seed. Yeah, you could look at that, but you have to beat someone really, really good to go to where we want to go. We’re going to be in a tough regional.”
The Sooners have found themselves in early holes in each of the four consecutive losses to end the season.
“I think we’ve just got to go out and play with some heart,” O’Brien said. “I felt like we were just pretty dead the last four days and played without a lot of emotion, just not a whole lot of life in us. We’ve got to get that spark and come out ready to go.”