photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

The Kansas baseball team thanks the fans after the Jayhawks' NCAA tournament game against Arkansas on Sunday, May 31, 2026, at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence.

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, eliminating the No. 2 national seed and sending the Sooners to a matchup with their former conference rival.

KU and OU will face off in a best-of-three series at Hoglund Ballpark beginning on either Friday or Saturday. Details will be announced on Tuesday morning, as the Jayhawks will make their first-ever super regional appearance in the friendly confines of their home venue.

OU, which finished 11th in the SEC with a 35-22 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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.