Oral Roberts players reflect on special run to Omaha

The improbable run of Oral Roberts to the College World Series came to an end Tuesday, leaving players with mixed emotions. With the sting of defeat still fresh following a 6-1 loss in an elimination game against TCU, they attempted to put in perspective just how incredible of a season it has been.

The CWS appearance was just the second in program history for the Golden Eagles and the first since 1978. They started the tournament off with a 6-5 win against the Horned Frogs on Friday that had everyone talking.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be as ORU then lost 5-4 to Florida on Sunday and simply appeared to run out of gas against TCU. Regardless of the way things ended, however, junior pitcher Cade Denton is proud of what he and his teammates accomplished.

“The way I’d summarize it is this team is probably one of the most gelled-together teams I think I’ve ever played on,” he said. “Like we said many times going into the fall we knew we had a talented team, but none of us knew it would gel the way it did. The way that we performed out on the field every single day and especially in that last half of the season during the win streak, I mean I’ve never seen baseball played so fundamentally well.

“And just it was exciting baseball and obviously to get here and win a game. Didn’t go the way we wanted it the last two games, but I can’t fault any of these guys. They’ve had a great year and it’s been fun.”

Oral Roberts began its run to the College World Series as the No. 4 seed in the Stillwater Regional. Despite that, the Golden Eagles defeated host Oklahoma State — which they also beat twice in the regular season — 6-4 in the opening game. They then reeled off victories against Washington and Dallas Baptist to win their third Regional in program history.

ORU then lost the first game of a Super Regional against Oregon and found itself with its back against the wall. However, the Golden Eagles won the second contest on a walk-off two-run single from Justin Quinn force a third game, which they went on to win 11-6 to reach the CWS.

Oral Roberts finished the year with a 52-14 record to set a program-record for wins in a single season. As they close the book on 2023, it will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest seasons in the team’s history.

“Not obviously how we wanted it to end, but if you’re going to play the last game somewhere it might as well be at Charles Schwab Field,” senior infielder Jake McMurray said. “It’s a historic year for our program. We have program record in wins. Second time ever being in Omaha, so obviously a very good year overall for us but just ran out of magic at the end.”