Oklahoma stuns Georgia Tech with 10th-inning walk-off

ATLANTA — For six innings Monday afternoon, Georgia Tech looked every bit like the team that earned the No. 2 national seed in the NCAA Tournament.

For the final four, Oklahoma looked like a team that simply refused to go away.

And when it finally ended, it ended suddenly.

Dayton Tockey led off the bottom of the 10th inning with a towering home run to center field, lifting Oklahoma to an 8-7 victory over Georgia Tech in the winner-take-all championship game of the NCAA Atlanta Regional at Russ Chandler Stadium.

Just like that, a historic season was over.

The Yellow Jackets finished 50-11, the winningest 61-game start in program history and one of the most prolific offensive teams college baseball has ever seen. But instead of celebrating a trip to the Super Regional round for the first time since 2006, Tech was left watching Oklahoma celebrate on its home field.

The Sooners (39-20) advance to face Kansas in the Super Regional round.

“It’s hard right now,” one could almost hear throughout a stunned Russ Chandler Stadium, where Georgia Tech appeared firmly in control for much of the afternoon.

After falling behind 3-0 in the first inning, the Yellow Jackets responded with the kind of offensive firepower that carried them all season.

Drew Burress ignited the comeback with a two-run homer in the third inning. Parker Brosius tied the game with a solo blast in the fifth, and Caleb Daniel followed moments later by sending another ball over the wall to give Tech a 4-3 lead.

An inning later, the Yellow Jackets appeared to seize complete control.

Alex Hernandez started the rally with a walk, Kent Schmidt followed with a single and Tech took advantage of an Oklahoma error to score three runs. Brosius drove in one with a groundout, Daniel added an RBI single and Carson Kerce delivered another run-scoring hit as the Jackets stretched the lead to 7-3.

At that point, the crowd of 4,000-plus could almost envision a Super Regional berth.

Oklahoma had other plans.

The Sooners began chipping away in the seventh inning, scoring twice to cut the deficit to 7-5. They added another run in the eighth and tied the game in the ninth when Jaxon Willits singled home Camden Johnson.

That erased what had been an outstanding relief performance from Mason Patel, who kept Oklahoma largely in check for 6 1/3 innings after starter Carson Ballard exited in the first.

Tech turned to Friday starter Tate McKee in the ninth inning in hopes of preserving the season.

Instead, the game drifted into extra innings.

One batter into the 10th, it was over.

Tockey connected on a pitch and sent it soaring beyond the center-field wall. As Oklahoma players poured from the dugout, Georgia Tech players stood frozen in disbelief.

The numbers from this season will remain remarkable.

The Yellow Jackets entered the tournament with the best 60-game record in school history. They shattered the program’s home run record, blasted 140 homers on the season and scored more than 650 runs. Their lineup was among the most feared in college baseball.

Monday’s loss won’t erase any of that.

But it will forever become part of the story.

For a Georgia Tech team that spent the spring rewriting portions of the record book and climbing as high as No. 2 nationally, the season ended one victory short of its ultimate goal.

The Yellow Jackets built one of the greatest offensive seasons in school history.

They just never got the final three outs they needed.