Santa Clara University’s baseball team faced a tough challenge on Saturday, falling 8-0 to No. 14/10 Oklahoma at Kimrey Family Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Despite the loss, Santa Clara’s young pitchers delivered notable performances out of the bullpen.
Redshirt sophomore Tyler Alleman entered the game in the fourth inning after Oklahoma had scored four runs over the first three frames. Alleman allowed one inherited runner to score but then retired three consecutive batters and ended the fifth inning with a strikeout, stranding two runners. He finished his outing with 1 1/3 shutout innings, giving up just one hit and striking out two.
Freshmen Trevor Banning and Max Reimers continued the solid relief work. Banning pitched a scoreless seventh inning, allowing no hits and issuing one walk. Reimers followed with a perfect eighth inning that included his first career strikeout.
At the plate, Andrew Rayment recorded Santa Clara’s only extra-base hit with a leadoff double in the third inning. Ben Cleary, Luke Devine, and Waylon Walsh also contributed singles for the Broncos. Oklahoma starting pitcher LJ Mercurius held Santa Clara’s offense in check by allowing only two batters over the minimum across six shutout innings while striking out six without issuing any walks. Relievers Mason Bixby, Nate Smithburg, and Drew Rerick each added a scoreless inning to close out the game.
Oklahoma built its lead early with two RBI doubles in the second inning for a 3-0 advantage and extended it to 4-0 on a sacrifice fly in the third. The Sooners added an RBI single in the fourth before scoring three more runs in the sixth on three separate base hits.
Ben Cleary extended his hitting streak to eight games on Saturday, matching Thomas Ferroggiaro for Santa Clara’s longest streak of this season.
The series finale between Santa Clara and Oklahoma is scheduled for Sunday at 11 a.m. PDT. Live coverage links are available at https://www.santaclarabroncos.com/.
