After Oklahoma’s comeback, Georgia Tech faces ‘ghosts’ of past failures

The Sooners did to the Yellow Jackets what the Jackets usually do to others. The party at Chandler Stadium quickly turned sour, the fun times suppressed by the possibility of a special Georgia Tech season ending in the NCAA regionals again.

The Jackets won their first two regional games for the first time since 2010. Now, after Oklahoma came back from a six-run deficit, the specter of 20 years with no super regionals will loom them for the deciding game on Monday afternoon.

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Tech coach James Ramsey said after the 15-8 loss. “This is the 2026 Yellow Jackets. We have an opportunity right in front of us... If you sat here and told our guys you have a chance to play at home to get out of a regional, and you didn’t know what was behind the door, you’d take that every single time.”

An undefeated regional run was behind the other door. The Jackets couldn’t knock it down.

Oklahoma surged back from its six-run deficit with eight runs in the fourth inning. Seven of those runs scored before Tech recorded an out. Deiten Lachance’s grand slam put the Sooners ahead for good in the fourth inning.

The Sooners took control of the game soon after they were on the wrong side of a controversial call in the third inning.

Oklahoma’s Trey Gambill hit a run-scoring single, except it wasn’t. Umpires interrupted the play to call a pitch clock violation on Jackson Blakely. Gambill ended up striking out.

The Sooners went from thinking they had a four-run deficit with two runners on base to seeing the inning end abruptly. Then Tech’s Carson Kerce reached base to lead off the fourth on OU shortstop Jaxson Willits’ error. Kerce went on to score on a sacrifice fly.

The Sooners looked shaken. They were running out of outs. No one could blame them if they were running out of steam, too. The bad luck of the rain out on Friday forced Oklahoma to play catch up with four games in 36 hours.

But the Sooners had one last surge in them.

Brendan Brock hit a lead-off homer. Kyle Branch and Jason Walk hit back-to-back RBI singles. Oklahoma had the bases loaded with no outs, and Lachance cleared them.

Suddenly, the Jackets were the shaken team. OU’s comeback sucked the energy from the stadium. The Jackets never got the good vibes back. Oklahoma kept coming: one run in the seventh and four more in the eighth.

Tech produced a total of six base runners from the fifth through eighth inning. None of them scored.

“Obviously, they made some good pitches,” Tech outfielder Drew Burress said. “But I think it was a momentum thing. Once we lost that momentum after the eight-run inning, I think we kind of struggled to get it back.

“We had quite a few opportunities, but the big swing didn’t’ come.”

That’s unusual for Tech. Impressive work by OU relievers Gavyn Jones and LJ Mercurius to shut down the Jackets. Mercurius pitched four scoreless innings after he pitched three scoreless against The Citadel on Saturday.

“I lied and told (coaches) I felt fine, but I didn’t feel fine,” Mercurius said. “I felt good enough to be able to compete.”