The Oral Roberts baseball team embraces its underdog status in a college sports landscape dominated by Power Five money, name, image and likeness deals and the transfer portal.
The small, private Christian school that competes in the Summit League lacks the money and facilities of the top programs. The Golden Eagles can show other factors matter when they play in the College World Series, starting Friday against TCU.
“A lot of times, we’ll say for what we lack in cash, we’ll make up in culture,” Oral Roberts athletic director Tim Johnson said. “And so that’s been a big part of what we’ve done.”
TCU will make its sixth World Series appearance since the start of the 2010 season. The Big 12 tournament champion Horned Frogs have won 11 straight games and 19 of 21. None of that matters to Oral Roberts (51-12) which has won 23 of 24 to reach the World Series for the second time ever and the first time since 1978.
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The school grabbed headlines two years ago when its men’s basketball team made a stirring run to the Sweet 16; the Golden Eagles reached the NCAA Tournament again earlier this year.
“When you’re a giant killer, the last thing you worry about is the giant,” Johnson said. “And so if you worry about beating the team on your own chest and what you do well and focus on the process and the purpose and the progress of what you’re doing, that’s how you beat teams that are a lot bigger than you.”
The Golden Eagles won at Oklahoma State in their regional opener, then rallied from an eight-run deficit to beat Washington 15-12. They squandered an 8-0 lead to lose Game 1 of their super regional at Oregon. With their season on the line in Game 2, they came back from a 7-4 deficit to defeat the Ducks 8-7. They won the decisive game Game 3, 11-6, to advance.
Coach Ryan Folmar said his team constantly finds ways to succeed in difficult situations.
“I think our guys have a really healthy perspective, not only about the game, but about moments and how moments get away from you and how you recover from some of those moments,” he said. “So I think to be able to do that takes a lot of maturity, takes a lot of toughness, takes a lot of discipline, and this group is all of those things.”
TCU coach Kirk Saarloos said Oral Roberts belongs with the best. His team learned mid-major programs can be tough when they battled Indiana State from the Missouri Valley Conference in super regionals.
“For me, the only difference is maybe just resources,” he said. “You know, in the Power Five, you get a little bit more resources than maybe than you do in the Group of Five. But does that mean that they’re not as good? Heck no. They’re here. They have 51 wins. And them, like anybody else, can win this thing.”
The Golden Eagles feature a deep pitching staff with a team earned run average of 3.97 – seventh nationally – and they lead the nation with a .984 fielding percentage.
Cade Denton, a junior, is tied for the national lead with 15 saves and has a 1.58 ERA. He has 78 strikeouts in 58 1/3 innings. Brooks Fowler has a 9-1 record with a 3.27 ERA. Harley Gollert, a senior who transferred from Austin Peay before this season, has a 10-1 record and a 4.30 ERA.
The Golden Eagles can hit, too – they rank fourth nationally with a .323 batting average. Center fielder Jonah Cox is on a 47-game hitting streak, tied for the third-longest in Division I history. The junior college transfer has a .420 batting average, leads the nation with 110 hits and has a hit in all but one game this season. Matt Hogan, a transfer from South Carolina, is batting .332 while senior first baseman Jake McMurray his hitting .327.
Many of those players chose Oral Roberts for the reasons others stay away. Johnson said there’s a market for programs that shy away from glitz and glamour.
“The name of the game is recruiting and retention,” Johnson said. “So you’ve got to find out wherever you are, what levers you can pull with what resources you have to make the big time wherever you are.”
Just like the basketball team during its NCAA Tournament trips, Oral Roberts has gained a national following. Johnson said the school had multiple times more requests than its 700 ticket-per-game allotment.
“As the landscape changes, what we as an industry have got to be careful of is we can’t lose these kinds of stories because these kinds of stories are what fuel the fire for a lot of the college athletics fans and what makes college athletics so unique,” Johnson said.
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