Oklahoma Baseball Team Looks To End South Carolina Win Streak

The talk in Columbia, S.C. this week has been all about the last time the Oklahoma Sooners and South Carolina Gamecocks tangled on the diamond.

Last time these two teams played, South Carolina defeated the Sooners, 3-2 in 12 innings to advance in the 2010 College World Series, while the Sooners headed home, defeated. South Carolina would go on to win their first national championship.

In the first game of the 2010 College World Series, the Sooners defeated South Carolina, and the Gamecocks haven't lost since that night in Omaha, 19 straight postseason games to be exact. The Sooners will be looking to end that streak when they take on the Gamecocks this weekend. The first two games will be on Saturday and Sunday, with a game on Monday if necessary.

South Carolina cruised through the regional they hosted in Columbia, defeating Manhattan in the first game, and then dispatching arch-rival Clemson twice to advance to this weekend's Super Regional.

The Sooners' trip to Columbia was a little bit harder than the Gamecocks. The Sooners dropped the first game of the regional to Appalachian State, and then won four games over two days, including two over Appalachian State on Monday, to advance to the Super Regionals.

The Sooners started the season slowly, but after getting swept on the road at Texas A&M in early April, OU has gone 24-9, including five wins against Baylor, who has been ranked in the top 10 for much of the season.

The Sooners have benefited from a lineup that has finally put it all together, and is hitting the ball well, and a pitching staff that has everyone in a place where they can best help the team succeed. Many times throughout the season, the pitching would be stellar, but the Sooners couldn't hit. Other times, the script was flipped.

OU seems to have figured it all out, and they've picked the best possible time to begin playing their best baseball of the year.

Whether or not it's enough to defeat the Gamecocks, and end that 19-game winning streak remains to be seen, but it's something the Sooners are not counting out.

In fact the Sooners are very confident they can, and maybe then, people will be talking more about the present matchup, rather than the one that ended the Sooners' 2010 run in Omaha.

OU Statistics

Batting Average: .265

Runs Per Game: 5.24

Home Runs: 36

Slugging Percentage: .382

Stolen Bases: 76

Earned Run Average: 3.27

Fielding Percentage: .968

South Carolina Statistics

Batting Average: .271

Runs Per Game: 5.37

Home Runs: 41

Slugging Percentage: .400

Stolen Bases: 37

Earned Run Average: 3.14

Fielding Percentage: .980