Updated 2:44 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, 2026:
In an improbable turn of events, there will in fact be a Lawrence Super Regional.
Oklahoma’s Dayton Tockey hit a walk-off home run in the 10th inning to stun Georgia Tech 8-7 in Game 7 of the Atlanta Regional on Monday, eliminating the No. 2 national seed and sending the Sooners to a matchup with their former conference rival.
The NCAA announced details of the super regional on Tuesday morning. KU and OU will face off in a best-of-three series at Hoglund Ballpark beginning on Saturday at 5 p.m. (to be televised on ESPN2), continuing on Sunday at 5 p.m. on ESPN+ and with a third game if necessary on Monday at a time to be determined. The Jayhawks will make their first-ever super regional appearance in the friendly confines of their home venue.
“You just get inundated with the bracket and when you see it shrinking down, it’s a pretty cool thing,” KU coach Dan Fitzgerald said. “And we talk so much about the things we’re grateful for inside of our program, so I think this is just another opportunity to compete for another championship. I mean, a conference regular-season title, a conference tournament championship, a regional championship — going for another one against another awesome team.”
OU, which finished 11th in the SEC and now has a 36-22 record overall and 14-16 in conference games, was the No. 2 seed in Georgia Tech’s regional and had to battle its way back from a number of big deficits to keep its season alive.
The Sooners pulled away from The Citadel for an 8-3 win on Friday, but then allowed six straight runs late in their first of three matchups against Georgia Tech as they lost 9-3 on Saturday.
After a much more comfortable 15-5 blowout over The Citadel on Sunday, OU got its offense going later that night against the Yellow Jackets. The Sooners fell behind 8-2 before Brendan Brock, Trey Gambill and Deiten Lachance all homered as part of an eight-run fourth inning. Gavyn Jones and LJ Mercurius combined to pitch six scoreless for OU, which built on its lead over the innings that followed and ultimately won 15-8 to force one last game.
“Going into the day, kind of in the back of your mind was, I drove in and thought, ‘I really don’t want to see all the things go away in The Backyard,'” Fitzgerald said. “I came up Naismith (Drive), I’m like, ‘I kind of like these banners, and kind of fun seeing all the porta-potties out there knowing that could be filled up again.’ But then you thought, ‘OK, got to get through the game.'”
Once again the Sooners looked dead in the water in Monday night’s winner-take-all game. They had led 3-0, but after a key error and two RBI singles in the sixth, they trailed 7-3.
“It was like, OK, well, Atlanta’s a great place, I’ve spent half my life there recruiting, it feels like,” Fitzgerald said.
However, Tech closer Mason Patel, who ended up throwing a career-high 100 pitches, started to waver in the bottom of the seventh, when OU cut its deficit in half with a fielder’s choice and an RBI double by Jaxon Willits.
Patel came back out for the eighth and got one out, but only after he gave up two more hits and committed an error that made it 7-6 did Tech replace him with lefty Dylan Loy. Loy got Jason Walk to line into an inning-ending double play, which ended the threat for the moment.
After Jackson Cleveland kept the Yellow Jackets at bay once again (he pitched 3 2/3 scoreless, hitless innings), OU tied the game against Tate McKee, Tech’s usual Friday night starter, on a single by Willits before winning it on Tockey’s walk-off in the 10th.
“Honestly, watching it, I stayed pretty just baseball-minded of evaluating, and then a little bit of the fan in me came out when they tied it where I was like, ‘Please walk them off so we can be at home,'” Fitzgerald said. “So it was a fun day, but it was pretty much business trying to figure out how we’re going to compete against both teams.”
Walk, a member of the SEC all-defensive team, was OU’s only player to receive an all-league honor. Lachance, a catcher from Quebec, has 14 home runs, all of which have come since April 9, and 58 RBIs on the season.
Fitzgerald said OU resembles a lot of KU’s past Big 12 opponents in that it features a mix of speed and power.
“Really athletic, they can run, they’re great defensively, very solid lineup, they play really good baseball,” Fitzgerald said. “They’re a great pitching staff. You know, probably similar comments as to everyone who’s playing in a super. Their coaching staff has been there and done that.”
Under coach Skip Johnson, OU previously reached the College World Series in 2022 and finished as runner-up. The Sooners are in their fifth straight NCAA Tournament.
KU is 97-175-1 in its history against OU, with the most recent matchups a pair of close losses in the 2024 Big 12 tournament before the Sooners left for the SEC.
KU advanced through the Lawrence Regional with an unbeaten record, beating Northeastern 6-3 on Friday, Arkansas 5-3 on Saturday and Arkansas again in a wild 13-10 finale on Sunday night. The Jayhawks are now just two wins away from the second College World Series appearance in program history.
Oklahoma’s Jason Walk (1) celebrates hitting a home run with Deiten Lachance (48) during an NCAA regional baseball game against Citadel on Sunday, May 31, 2026 in Atlanta.
Kansas fans celebrate during a game against Arkansas on Saturday, May 30, 2026, in Lawrence.
Kansas fans watch the regional game against Arkansas from The Backyard on Saturday, May 30, 2026, in Lawrence.
Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
AP Photo/Stew Milne
Sarah Buchanan/Special to the Journal-World
Sarah Buchanan/Special to the Journal-World