Game three. Two of the most famous words in College Baseball had the chance to be used on Monday night as the Sooners of Oklahoma and the Tar Heels of North Carolina split the first two games of the Championship Series of 2026 to set the scene for a wild Monday night season finale to decide the 2026 national champion. Oklahoma took game of the series on Friday night, while the Tar Heels of North Carolina took game two, creating this feeling of college baseball at its finest, as one of the best teams from the ACC would face a red-hot team out of the Southeastern Conference that has been on a tear since losing to LSU in the SEC Baseball Tournament in Hoover. 

Oklahoma entered the College World Series seeking its third national championship in program history, the first since 1994. On the other hand, North Carolina would be seeking its first National Championship in history, despite playing for the trophy three times as a runner-up out of 13 trips in program history. 

Despite losing to LSU in the SEC Tournament last month, the Sooners came into the College World Series with one mission: to return the National Championship Trophy home to Norman by trusting the process and staying true to what makes Sooners baseball so deadly. No matter the outcome of Monday night, Oklahoma is the latest team in a long, storied history of underachieving in the regular season or even a conference tournament to have a flipping of the switch moment and go on a tear through Regionals, Super Regionals, and now the College World Series. That’s just baseball; you don’t have to have the best record, or hell, even the best of regular seasons, all that matters is what you do once you get to the postseason, and truth be told, not only did Oklahoma do that, but so did North Carolina. Over the last three days, we have had the two best teams since Regionals started playing each other to determine which has the better postseason team. 

With an early, large deficit to overcome, the Tar Heels would have to use all the chips to try to slow down the Sooners’ offense, using several pitchers, with the longest lasting 2.2 innings, who happened to be the starter, Jackson Rose. Meanwhile, for Oklahoma, the large lead would help the Sooners manage pitchers a bit better, with Nick Wesloski lasting 2.1 innings with one run and three strikeouts, before turning the mound over to LJ Mercurius to bring it on home for the Sooners. Jackson Cleveland would be tasked with the final three outs in the bottom of the 9th for the Sooners.

As they’ve done all postseason long, Oklahoma jumped out on North Carolina in the top half of the second inning with two runs to take the early 2-0 lead over the Tar Heels. Two runs would turn into six after the first four innings as Oklahoma had extended the lead over North Carolina to 6-1. The Sooners would add one more in the top half of the 5th before adding two in the top half of the 6th to make it 9-1 Sooners, bringing the first national championship since 1994 into reach. North Carolina would add a run in the bottom of the 7th to cut the Sooners’ lead to 9-2, but that run didn’t change the fact that Oklahoma would be six outs away from a title heading to the top half of the 8th inning. Oklahoma would add a 13th run to the scoreboard in the top half of the 8th inning with a four-run inning capped off by a three-run shot from Kyle Branch that extended the Sooners’ lead to 13-2 over the Tar Heels. 

At the end of the day, Oklahoma was the best team this postseason, and they stayed true to what was working for the last month or so, and now they’re heading back to Norman with a third National Championship Trophy, the first since 1994. A truly remarkable journey from the Sooners these last four or so weeks, a ride that has reminded the sports world of the true beauty of college baseball. This will be one of those runs that generations to come will talk about and learn about as they come into their own passion and love for the game of college baseball. 

Along with the Sooners’ win comes another College World Series Championship for the Southeastern Conference, as the streak has now been extended to seven seasons in a row. A streak started by Vanderbilt in 2019 and could have been eight had it not been for the pandemic in 2020. The current state of SEC baseball is what football used to be, as until proven otherwise, the Southeastern Conference is the king of college baseball. 

Photo Credits- OU Baseball on X