Pokes Swept by Texas Tech, Get No. 2 Seed in Big 12 Tournament

Well … that did not go as planned. Oklahoma State (29-22-1) was swept over the weekend at home by No. 11 Texas Tech (38-15), which opened the door for Texas to claim the regular season Big 12 title and pushed the Pokes into the No. 2 seed for the Big 12 Tournament.

In short term, this is obviously disappointing. You controlled your own destiny and only had to win two of your final six Big 12 games to claim at least a share of the regular season conference crown. The Cowboys won one.

As a result, Texas took Big 12 crown No. 8, although the Cowboys will have a chance to vindicate their closing stretch (as well as their early season loss to Texas) next week when they roll in as the defending champions of the Big 12 Tournament.

The Red Raiders beat the Cowboys 9-4, 14-6 and 7-3 in Stillwater for the three-game broom festival. On Saturday, the Raiders got three in the first and seven in four and two-thirds innings off of OSU starter Jonathan Heasley. That was more than enough to get them to the finish line.

“You turn the page on the regular season,” said head coach Josh Holliday. “Regular season ended today. Your body of work is your body of work. You draw from that the good and learn from the things you know you’re going to have to do better going into postseason play.”

“We had some remarkable moments throughout the course of the regular season,” added Holliday whose Pokes would have secured Big 12 title No. 2 with any combination of wins over Texas Tech and Texas losses to TCU that added up to two.

“You have to remind your team, especially when you’re coming off a couple tough weekends in a row, hey don’t hang your head over that. You played great baseball for a big chunk of the season. Those last couple, they sting a little bit because you’re on the brink of trying to finish something out and you don’t get the job done. You have to turn the page quickly.”

Big 12 Titles (inc. ties)

OSU will take on West Virginia on Wednesday at 4 p.m. in Oklahoma City. The Cowboys took two of three from the Mountaineers at the beginning of April up in Morgantown.