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ARLINGTON, Texas – Jake Bennett registered career highs of 12 strikeouts and 7.2 innings and Jackson Nicklaus hit a three-run home run to lead Oklahoma to a 6-3 win over Texas Tech in the 2022 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship Thursday night at Globe Life Field.

The Sooners (35-20) advance to the semifinal round of the Big 12 Championship. OU will play the winner of Texas Tech and Kansas State in the semifinals at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

Bennett (7-3) allowed only two hits and two walks in the game. He retired the first six batters of the contest, and then six in a row after the Red Raiders (37-19) scored in the third inning. He stranded an error in the sixth inning and stranded his first walk of the game in the seventh. He then struck out the first two batters of the eighth inning before turning over the game to Trevin Michael to close it out.

Nicklaus put Oklahoma on the board with a frozen rope three-run home run over the right field wall in the second inning. Peyton Graham hit a two-run single, and John Spikerman scored on a running play in a three-run seventh inning that made the score 6-1. Texas Tech scored on a sacrifice fly in the third inning.

Tanner Tredaway and Jimmy Crooks singled to lead off the second inning and set up the true freshman Nicklaus’ ninth homer of the season.

All of Oklahoma’s damage in the seventh inning was done with two outs. Brett Squires was hit by a pitch, Kendall Pettis drew a nine-pitch walk and Spikerman reached on an infield single. Graham then lined a base hit to right field, bringing in two runs. Spikerman scored from third when Graham got into a pickoff rundown between first and second, and the throw went into left center field.

Graham went 2 for 4 and five other players notched a hit in the game. The Sooners have won their first two games of the Big 12 tournament for the first time since 2013.

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