Cowboys advance to Big 12 tourney title game

ARLINGTON, Texas – Oklahoma State earned a berth in the Big 12 Championship title game with a 10-1 win over UCF Friday night in the tournament semifinals at Globe Life Field.

With the win, the second-seeded Cowboys improved to 39-17 and will face Bedlam rival and top-seeded Oklahoma in Saturday’s championship game at 6 p.m. UCF is now 35-19.

This marks the second-straight year the Pokes have advanced to the title game and the seventh time in 11 tourney appearances under head coach Josh Holliday.

It is the program’s eighth overall Big 12 Championship finals berth, and OSU captured tourney crowns in 2004, 2017 and 2019. The Cowboys will be seeking the 35th conference title in school history.

Nolan Schubart led OSU with a 2-for-5 effort that included a home run and four RBIs, while Avery Ortiz went 3-for-4 with two doubles and drove in a pair of runs. Carson Benge also had three hits, including a homer, and three RBIs.

Brian Holiday tossed his second complete game of the season to earn the win as he improved to 6-3. The right-hander struck out seven and allowed just one run while scattering eight hits.

OSU jumped out to an early lead in the first inning thanks to Schubart’s 19th homer of the season, a two-run blast over the wall in right field.

The Pokes doubled their lead in their second at bat. Following a walk to Kollin Ritchie, he raced home on a double down the left-field line off the bat of Ortiz. Two batters later, Zach Ehrhard ripped a triple off the wall in left to make the score 4-0.

In the fourth, Ortiz got the scoring started with his second RBI of the game on a single, and Benge brought home a run with a groundout. Schubart continued his hot hitting with a two-out, two-RBI single to push the Cowboys’ lead to 8-0.

Holiday kept the Knights off the scoreboard for the first 5 2/3 innings before Danny Neri broke up the shutout with a run-scoring double to cut the UCF deficit to seven.

OSU got the run back in the seventh on Benge’s 17th round tripper of the season, a 433-foot bomb to center field, and added another on Benge’s third RBI of the night, which came on a single in the eighth.