Oklahoma
College baseball week in review: Oklahoma keeps rolling, Clemson sweeps South Carolina
Oklahoma is on the rise in its first season in the Southeastern Conference. The Sooners entered The Athletic college baseball Top 25 last week at No. 23 after they beat then-No. 9 Oregon State and then-No. 3 Virginia at the Round Rock Classic.
Oklahoma remained perfect with a weekend sweep over Cal State Northridge in Norman. The Sooners rallied for a 3-2 win on Sunday after they scored 39 runs in four games over the previous five days.
Right-handed junior Kyson Witherspoon, the reigning SEC Pitcher of the Week, threw six shutout innings Friday against Northridge. Witherspoon has a 28-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 1.50 ERA in three starts, coming off an offseason in which he pitched for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team.
Witherspoon gives the Sooners a high-end SEC ace. And his twin brother, Malachi, is a solid No. 2 for the Sooners, posting a 2-0 mark with a 1.88 ERA in three starts. He closed for Team USA last summer. The Witherspoon twins came to OU from Northwest Florida State College ahead of the 2024 season.
The Sooners’ No. 3 starter is Cameron Johnson, a top-15 national recruit in the Class of 2023 who spent his freshman season at LSU. His command continues to be an issue — he has walked 10 in 13.1 innings — but opposing hitters are batting only .204 against him in his three starts.
OU improved to 11-0, its best start since it won its first 16 games in 2011, with the three wins against Northridge. The Sooners visit Dallas Baptist on Tuesday, the most significant obstacle in the way of Oklahoma taking a 16-0 record into its SEC opener at South Carolina on March 14.
The Sooners advanced to the College World Series finals in 2022 but failed to get out of a Regional the last two seasons.
Clemson made a statement in handing rival South Carolina its first three losses of the season, sweeping the Gamecocks 5-3, 5-1 and 8-2. The opening game was played Friday at Clemson, Saturday in Greenville, S.C., and Sunday at Founders Park in Columbia, the Gamecocks’ home stadium.
Ethan Darden pitched seven scoreless innings on Saturday, allowing three hits, to win the Bob Bradley Award as Clemson’s MVP in the annual series. The Tigers are 10-1.
Columbia has enjoyed a rich recent history in baseball. The Lions have won the Ivy League postseason championship five times dating back to 2013.
They took Miami to a winner-take-all seventh game of a Regional in 2015 and won a pair of games at the Blacksburg Regional in 2022.
In Columbia’s not-so-recent history, Lou Gehrig played at the New York school.
Over the weekend, Columbia played at Oregon, the preseason Big Ten favorite. The Ducks swept the four-game series, scoring 55 runs in the first two games. Oregon won 35-1 in the opener of a Saturday doubleheader.
Columbia does not need a pity party. The Lions will be fine. They play at Georgia this week.
But the lopsided scores in Eugene serve as a canary in the coal mine for college baseball.
What is to come of the Division I format, with more than 300 teams vying for the same postseason, as the 11.7-scholarship limit disappears in the wake of the NCAA v. House settlement?
If terms of the settlement are approved next month, the roster limit will drop in 2026 from 40 players to 34. But coaches will no longer be limited by the NCAA in how they distribute scholarship money.
Rich SEC schools and other power-conference programs that invest in baseball can soar past 11.7 scholarships if they choose to pay for it. Scholarship costs will be deducted from revenue revenue-sharing allotment, expected in 2025-26 to be capped at $20.5 million.
Columbia and its Ivy League partners do not award athletic scholarships. Safe to say the Lions also won’t see any part of revenue-share dollars. And while the vast majority of college baseball players will not get rich from the House settlement, its impact and the next wave of NIL payments are sure to tip the scales further in this sport.
In fact, it all may prove to be a death knell in the bids of under-resourced programs to compete with the likes of Oregon and Georgia.
Administrations on both sides of the power structure ought to think twice about scheduling such future series.
Columbia will continue to find and develop good players. Just not enough of them to stay on the field with an elite group of power programs on track to grow more powerful.
Gardner-Webb designated hitter Dale Francis smashed four home runs on Saturday in the Runnin’ Bulldogs’ 16-14 win at Appalachian State.
Francis, a fifth-year senior from Fort Pierce, Fla., drove in 12 runs. After he hit a grand slam in the seventh inning, Francis was denied a chance at his fifth home run when the Mountaineers intentionally walked him in the top of the ninth inning with one out.
Have a day @Too_good_dj ‼️
4 homeruns
12 RBIs
Intentionally walked, with the bases loaded. @KendallRogers @aaronfitt @d1baseball @midmajors_d1 @JoeHealyD1 @Mike_Rooney @Monty2740 @CollegeBaseCNT @Micah_CBC @GWUSports @BigSouthSports @NCAABaseball pic.twitter.com/SolDmwBSxg— Gardner-Webb Baseball (@GWUBaseball) March 2, 2025
He also homered in the first, fifth and sixth innings. Francis transferred after last season to Gardner-Webb from Division II Erskine College, where he hit .405 with 15 homers in 33 games last year. Through 13 games this season, he’s hitting .409 with seven homers, 27 RBIs and a 1.436 OPS.
Marshall McDougall of Florida State owns the NCAA record for home runs and RBIs in a game. McDougall hit six bombs and drove in 16 runs against Maryland in 1999.
Gardner-Webb dropped to 6-7 after a 9-7 loss on Sunday to App State. The 6-foot-3, 230-pound Francis, hitting in the cleanup spot, finished 1 for 3 with a single.
Gardner-Webb of the Big South has not appeared in the NCAA postseason since its move to Division I in 2003. For any host school that might draw G-W in a Regional — if the Bulldogs can find a way to win the conference tournament — there’s a big bat in the middle of that lineup to avoid.
Miami won the series finale, 13-7, against Florida on Sunday in Gainesville to hand the fourth-ranked Gators their first loss in 12 games this season.
To say their rivalry has been tightly contested through the years is an understatement.
It’s been all Hurricanes today in Gainesville. They are going to salvage the series and hand the Gators their 1st loss of the season
All-Time series is now back tied up 136-136-1 between the 2 schools pic.twitter.com/WrxTO9eAPf
— 11Point7 College Baseball (@11point7) March 2, 2025
Top-ranked Texas A&M, after a 5-0 start, lost four consecutive games but avoided a winless week with a 14-4 victory against Rice on Sunday night in the Astros Foundation College Classic. Also at Dalkin Park over the weekend in Houston, Oklahoma State beat the Aggies 4-0, and Arizona scored twice in the top of the ninth inning for a 3-2 over A&M.
Texas State beat Texas A&M 7-3 on Tuesday in College Station after the Aggies lost the finale of a three-game series against Cal Poly on Feb. 23.
Earlier in the Week, A&M learned that sophomore Gavin Grahovac, their All-America third baseman, will miss the rest of the 2025 season due to a shoulder injury.
Speaking of Arizona, Chip Hale’s team has rebounded nicely after a 0-3 start. The Wildcats, ranked No. 15 in the preseason, won seven consecutive games before losing 5-1 to Tennessee on Sunday in Houston.
Arizona beat Texas A&M on run-scoring infield singles by Easton Breyfogle and Brendan Summerhill in the decisive ninth inning on Friday. On Saturday, Arizona reliever Tony Pluta escaped a two-aboard, no-out jam in the bottom of the ninth as the Cats beat Mississippi State 6-5.
The unbeaten Volunteers were the class of the Astros Foundation College Classic. Defending national champion Tennessee (11-0) swept past Oklahoma State, Rice and Arizona. Four Tennessee relievers shut down Arizona in the de facto championship game of the event over the final seven innings.
Tennessee pitchers allowed five earned runs in three games and recorded 45 strikeouts while holding the opposition to a .204 batting average. Junior second baseman Gavin Killen hit .600 with four homers and seven RBIs in the tournament.
Kansas last played in a Regional in 2014. It’s off to a 10-1 start under third-year coach Dan Fitzgerald and opened its latest series in Lawrence with a bang. Dariel Osoria hit a walk-off grand slam on Thursday as the Jayhawks beat Omaha 12-8. The Mavericks took a two-run lead to the bottom of the ninth inning before Chase Diggins hit a game-tying, two-run shot.
Omaha, which beat then-No. 4 LSU a week earlier on the road, rebounded Friday to win 9-5, but Kansas took three of four games in the series. The Jayhawks are off to their best 11-game start since that 2014 season when they won one game at the Louisville Regional.
KU finished 31-23 overall and 15-15 in the Big 12 last year and had six players selected in the MLB Draft.
Arkansas left-hander Parker Coil hurled an immaculate inning on Sunday in the Razorbacks’ 4-3 win against Charlotte. Coil threw nine pitches in the eighth inning, all for strikes, to fan the side.
Strike three. Strike six. Strike nine.
Sit back and enjoy all nine pitches from @parker_coil‘s immaculate inning 😇 pic.twitter.com/P6p5gcKoYq
— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) March 2, 2025
Even more impressive, Portland’s Ryan Rembisz threw a perfect game — on just 90 pitches! — against Seattle on Tuesday in an 8-0 win for the Pilots. Rembisz, a senior lefty, struck out 12 to complete the 21st nine-inning perfecto in Division I history.
The game at Joe Etzel Field in Portland was attended by 165 people — all of them witnesses of history.
(Photo of Kyson Witherspoon: Alonzo Adams / Imagn Images)
Oklahoma
Wembanyama leads San Antonio Spurs past Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 to reach NBA Finals
Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs started the Western Conference finals with a win in Oklahoma City, then ended the series the same way.
The champions are dethroned. Wembanyama and the Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals.
Wembanyama scored 22 points, Julian Champagnie got 18 of his 20 off of 3-pointers, and the Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on Saturday night – bucking heavy odds to win a Game 7 on the road.
“This feeling, I can’t explain it,” Wembanyama said. “It’s so powerful.”
Stephon Castle scored 16 points, and De’Aaron Fox had 15. Dylan Harper added 12, and Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell each finished with 11 for the Spurs, who are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
They will host the New York Knicks in Game 1 on Wednesday night.
“Back in October, we knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
Correction – the Spurs have a chance to be great. Championship-level great.
A huge moment came midway through the fourth, when San Antonio’s Luke Kornet blocked Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Hartenstein at the rim – denying a fast-break score that would have gotten the Thunder within four.
It felt like the last gasp for the Thunder. Kornet played six minutes, missed all three of his shot attempts, and finished with only two points, but the block was an epic moment.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 35 points and nine assists, but for the eighth consecutive season, the NBA will have a new champion. Cason Wallace scored 17 points, while Jared McCain and Alex Caruso had 12 apiece for the Thunder.
“You have to grow from every experience, including the tough ones,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “And it’s the NBA – there are tough ones. We can also be really disappointed. … There’s nobody that we don’t think we can beat, respectfully.”
After four straight games that were largely decided going into the fourth quarter — the Thunder led Game 3 by 11, the Spurs led Game 4 by 18, the Thunder led Game 5 by 10, and the Spurs led Game 6 by 26, those leads all holding up with relative ease – this one was different, worthy of a Game 7.
Spurs 80, Thunder 77 was the score going into the fourth, a bit of a back-and-forth contest in which the Spurs led by as many as 14 in the first half and by as many as 11 in the third, only to see the Thunder come roaring back both times.
“The players did what they’ve been doing all year, and they met the biggest moment,” Johnson said.
The Spurs pulled away in the fourth again, daring the Thunder to try to come back one more time. The champions — short-handed, with Jalen Williams sidelined with a bad hamstring — just didn’t have anything left.
“Winning an NBA championship is very hard in itself to do one time,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So to do it all over again would just only make it harder.”
San Antonio won eight of the 12 meetings against the Thunder this season — and in the end, the only matchup that really mattered.
“We want four more,” Wembanyama said. “We’re not done.”
SAN ANTONIO – Eight very lucky Spurs superfans are on their way to Oklahoma City, all thanks to H-E-B!
Early Saturday morning, the Spurs Jackals, a team of superfans of the San Antonio Spurs, personally curated by Victor Wembanyama ahead of the 2025-2026 season, announced via X (formerly Twitter) that eight of their members would be going to Oklahoma City.
This came following a previous announcement from the previous day, sadly telling fans they would not be in attendance at Game 7.
Following that, H-E-B confirmed the announcement, saying that the eight lucky superfans would be joining the organization for Game 7 in Oklahoma City.
RELATED | Meet the Jackals: San Antonio’s new era of Spurs energy
Whether you’ve been to a San Antonio Spurs game in person or caught them taking over your social media feed, you’ve heard them before.
During home games, the fans inside The Frost Bank Center serve as a heartbeat, and The Jackals are the pulse.
Founded ahead of the 2025-2026 season by Victor Wembanyama, the group got the ultimate co-sign from Wemby himself when he gave them their now-iconic name, The Jackals.
No matter if you’re up in the 200 section or courtside cheering for the Spurs. The jackals are in section 114 and in the H-E-B fan zone, carrying the energy across all levels of Frost Bank Arena.
See finished neon boot Route 66 sculpture celebrating 100th anniversary
“Kicks 66” is a 35-foot neon red boot that pays homage to Route 66’s legacy in Oklahoma; one of many new art installations built in celebration of the mother road’s 100th anniversary.
The Oklahoma Legislature wants a dramatic turnaround in student literacy rates to rival the so-called Mississippi Miracle.
Now, every teacher of kindergarten through third grade, and every reading specialist, instructional coach and principal in elementary schools across the state find themselves on the frontlines of meeting a host of new requirements under the Oklahoma Strong Readers Act – and more importantly, will be trying to achieve measurable success where past efforts have fallen short.
They’ve got the summer break to digest new non-negotiables, as one state official over early literacy describes the new legislative mandates, and to prepare for heightened expectations come August to intervene with struggling readers and to communicate with parents about their child’s challenges.
At Jenks East Elementary School in South Tulsa, Mandy Shimp works by day as the Title I reading specialist for third and fourth grade. On evenings and weekends, she works as a private tutor for children with language-based learning disorders, including dyslexia, drawing on her advanced training as a certified academic language therapist.
When she heard talk of imposing a strict, new requirement to retain – or hold back – the vast majority of Oklahoma students who don’t pass the state reading test by the end of third grade, Shimp went into research mode. She ended up filling a binder with information about the decade-long investment of time and at least $100 million into teacher training that laid the groundwork for Mississippi student literacy rates to climb from second-to-last to top-tier between 2013 and 2024.
Now, she is questioning why Oklahoma lawmakers have imposed this key component of Mississippi’s law, referred to there as the third-grade gate, with just one year for educators to prepare.
“They’re expecting us to build this foundation in a year,” Shimp said. “Teacher training is not an extra — it is the foundation. We can pass laws, mandate screeners, and retain students, but if teachers are not deeply trained in how reading develops, how to teach phonological awareness, how to diagnose reading difficulties, and how to intervene effectively, the legislation will not produce the results people are hoping for.”
During 24 years in education, Shimp has attended more than 100 meetings with parents, teachers and administrators to help decide whether retention or probationary promotion to the next grade level is most appropriate for a child. That firsthand experience has her most troubled by the students who won’t qualify for so-called good-cause exemptions allowed under Senate Bill 1778.
“Students not on IEPs (Individualized Education Programs, which are customized for children with disabilities) can be retained up to two times – once in kindergarten, first or second, and then again in third grade,” Shimp said, shaking her head. “I begged, I begged, I begged, I reached out to legislators – `Please take that out.’
“That is an eighth grader driving,” she said. “That is a kid graduating when they’re 20 years old. It is not effective. If they are not on an IEP, there’s other issues going on.”
Other educators share optimism about Strong Readers Act
Michelle Goldstein, principal at Northeast Elementary School in Owasso, is a lot more optimistic about the sweeping overhaul of Oklahoma’s Strong Readers Act because her school already has in place the Multi-Tiered System of Supports, or MTSS, now required.
Through this approach, all Oklahoma schools will use screener tests to identify struggling readers in early grades and provide them interventions of increasing levels of intensity with the goal of ensuring they score proficient or better by the end of third grade.
Goldstein said Northeast’s most powerful strategy is the use of child study teams. Teachers sign up once per month to meet with a team of reading specialists, a psychologist, a counselor, two school administrators, and special education and English Learner teachers to discuss individual cases of academic or behavioral challenges.
“We sit there as a team and brainstorm ideas for what might help the student,” Goldstein said. “Then the teacher comes back the next month to discuss the results. As educators, we have never arrived knowing how to help every student. It’s strength in numbers. We all know a little, but together, that’s a lot.”
With news of the changes in state law coming as schools were winding down for summer break, Goldstein said she believes the greatest challenge for the majority of school-based educators like her will be to catch up on the new legal requirements.
She will rely on district administrators, who will rely on guidance from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
“I think it will be harder for schools that don’t already have those multi-tiered systems in place,” said Goldstein. “For us, I think it’s how we roll it out, how we package that change for parents and students. We make or break the weather of how that feels in our building. I’m not worried about having a bunch of kids being caught by a law.”
Rush to provide state guidance, support
The same person credited by State Superintendent Lindel Fields with devoting hundreds of work hours as the point person for the Oklahoma State Department of Education on SB 1778 as it moved through the legislative process is now leading the state-level work to implement the new law.
“We are going through this with a fine-toothed comb right now, making sure districts will have what they need to implement this in the fall,” said Melissa Ahlgrim, director of literacy policy and programs at OSDE. “A lot of this is not new.”
Because of the comprehensive overhaul of the Strong Readers Act, state education officials are busy updating the OSDE webpage on the subject, writing a special newsletter for statewide distribution, preparing two public webinars scheduled for July, and speaking at summer conferences for educators.
The most urgent requirements, Ahlgrim said, are for all schools to use screeners to identify students’ reading challenges early and to begin reporting to parents several times each school year about their child’s Student Literacy Intervention Plan beginning in August. She said there will also be literacy-related changes in how state funding is calculated in the 2026-27 academic year, but that is a concern for school district administrators.
“The biggest misunderstanding I see is third grade is too late,” Ahlgrim said. “We have to be helping them starting in kindergarten. It is still up to schools to decide how they will best meet the needs of their students, but they must better define the framework. We are defining those fences, so there is a lot of freedom left within those fences, but if you’re way off in another pasture, that won’t work. There are some new non-negotiables.”
Chief among those new non-negotiables is who will be allowed to move on to fourth grade – and who will not.
State test data for 2024-25 show that 21,300 third graders failed to score at basic or above, meaning that under the new law, they could have been held back unless they qualified for an exemption. But that part of SB 1788, as well as a new requirement for schools to give second graders the state’s third-grade reading test unless their parents opt out, won’t kick in until 2027-28.
That new testing mandate is the subject of the most questions and concerns Ahlgrim and her team at the state Education Department are reportedly receiving, and they don’t yet have all of the answers.
“We are still trying to figure that out because it was added later in the (legislative) process,” Ahlgrim said. “They (legislators) had been talking to Indiana, which has done a version of this, but they have an opt-in for second graders to take the third-grade test. One of the platforms the authors had was, `We need to stay the course. We’re not going to see a change in one year.’”
To support the overhaul of the Strong Readers Act, the state budget includes more than $43 million for reading instruction and interventions in schools, $5 million in supplemental funding for teacher training academies this summer, and $5 million in ongoing annual funding for teacher training programs. Additional funding will support reading-at-home initiatives and statewide math and reading screeners, helping educators identify students’ learning needs earlier.
Among those increases is a rapid expansion of Help Elevate Reading Outcomes for Every Student, which the legislature established as a pilot program three years ago.
Ahlgrim’s team is on a hiring spree to expand the literacy instructional team that will be working with 145 of the state’s approximately 1,000 elementary schools to implement science-based reading instruction through professional development and coaching for teachers and principals. They ended 2025-26 with 15 on the team, and are aiming to fill new positions to deploy a team of 30 across the state beginning in August.
HEROES team members said they are most concerned about schools that don’t already have well-articulated systems for identifying students reading below grade level and providing specialized, targeted instruction to help them catch up.
“Like in a car, that check engine light comes on,” said Classie Nolan, who worked 17 years as a teacher and instructional reading coach at Frederick before joining the HEROES team 3 years ago. “What skills are they missing? Where are we having roadblocks for this student? That’s where we provide a diagnostic assessment. We’re not going to ask for a tire when it could be a problem with our transmission. We have to diagnose it and get to the root of the problem.”
Lolly Cole, an Ada-based member of the HEROES team, said teacher training and buy-in by elementary school principals are key to improving student outcomes in reading.
“As a teacher, you get concerned you don’t have the time to balance it all out,” Cole said. “But the great thing I’ve seen from training or classes we’ve worked with, is the reaction of, `Wow, I never learned about phonics and phonemic awareness.’ I understand the concerns – there’s only so much time to balance between family and work. But this is a process. It’s not a quick fix. Most of the teachers I’ve come into contact with are excited. We are all here to make a difference for kids and our communities.”
Ripple Effects
Public school educators aren’t the only ones preparing for the implementation of SB 1778, according to Sandra Valentine, who teaches third grade at Trinity School, a private school in Oklahoma City dedicated to students with learning differences.
“My school will keep growing and more schools like it will keep popping up all around that state,” she said. “If I’m told three times a year my kid might be retained, I’m going to be a momma bear and say, `Where can I take my kid so they won’t be 19 when they graduate?’”
When Ryan Walters, a political lightning rod, entered office as state superintendent three years ago, Valentine walked away from public schools after teaching third grade for 12 years combined at Little Axe and Tecumseh.
Still, she thinks about returning to work in a public school one day, and she continues to visit the state Capitol to advocate for public school policies she feels are best for the public school students in her own family, her youngest daughter and six grandchildren.
“I have thought about it, but Ryan Walters’ policies are still there,” Valentine said. “We have not changed anything, really.”
Her school is growing so rapidly that its kindergarten-through-third-grade classes now require a larger building. That means working through the start of summer break. Sorting through the contents of her classroom this week, Valentine said the tote bags, stickers and large painted poster emblazoned with her personal motto, “Literacy is non-negotiable,” will all certainly make the move to her new classroom.
“We have a lot of state officials tour here, wanting to know what we’re doing. (State Senator) Adam Pugh, when he came to my room, asked where my painted poster is – because he had heard of it,” she said, with a laugh.
The difference-makers, Valentine said, are that all teachers must have specialized training or certification in reading instruction, every student attends reading therapy class daily, and Trinity students aren’t subjected to the state’s high-stakes standardized test.
“We are meeting them where they’re at,” she said. “Not third-grade level, but working backward to where they are. Now, I’m no longer teaching to a test and freely teaching to the needs of my students. Why can’t we just put this in a public school?”
Valentine previously worked as a consultant to help improve schools’ academic results by targeting students who were just shy of meeting the benchmark for reading proficiency with state test prep.
“It’s all a numbers game,” Valentine said. “When our lawmakers say our kids in public schools are not proficient in reading, it’s not like a third-grade child is not reading Dick and Jane. It is an 8- or 9-year-old having to listen to 15 minutes of instructions right off the bat, then be on a computer for two to three hours, navigating passages that are 200-300 words long – sometimes on subject matter they have no familiarity with – and answering 60 questions. If they’re not passing after all that, then that’s considered not reading on grade level.”
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
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