It was a championship made all the more meaningful by the fact that Oklahoma had to come storming all the way back from an opening-game loss and survive four consecutive elimination games in order to capture its eighth NCAA regional championship in the last 10 seasons.
Mendes set the tone on how Monday’s championship final would go, hammering the very first pitch of the game out of the yard to give the Sooners a 1-0 lead.
Tulsa put runners on base in each of the first five innings against Parker and left two runners stranded in the fifth, but was not able to get any runners past third base.