Oklahoma sends West Virginia to quick exit at the Big 12 tournament

West Virginia’s baseball season ended with a whimper, a .500 record and coach Randy Mazey rationalizing that the Mountaineers overachieved.

Thursday’s 6-1 elimination loss to Oklahoma concluded a brief stay at the Big 12 tournament in Tulsa, Okla., where in two games West Virginia (27-27) batted 1-for-20 with runners in scoring position and hit .217 overall.

The loss extends the postseason drought for West Virginia, which hasn’t qualified for an NCAA regional since 1996.

Sheldon Neuse put the Sooners (33-26) ahead 2-1 with a sac-fly in the sixth and busted the game open with a bases-clearing double during a four-run eighth.

Robert Tasin (9-2) pitched seven strong innings for Oklahoma to outduel Ross Vance (7-5), who kept the game tight until his pitch count climbed into the 120s during the eighth-inning outburst.

“For the most part I kept the ball down,” said Vance, who gave up six runs on 10 hits over 7 2/3 innings. “They just got hits when they needed them.”

Vance began the season as essentially the only pitching holdover from West Virginia’s 2014 staff, leading Mazey to wonder why the Mountaineers were picked sixth instead of last in the nine-team conference.

“We had so many question marks going into the season,” he said. “So for us to grind out what we grinded out with an inexperienced pitching, I think we overachieved.”

Mazey considered it a victory that West Virginia won three of its final four Big 12 regular-season games to escape the cellar and qualify for the eight-team tournament.

“I really wanted to come here and play for the experience of the younger guys in the program,” he said.

Jackson Cramer’s two-out RBI single in the fifth leveled the score at 1-1 and proved to be WVU’s only run of the tournament.

Tasin encountered trouble on Ray Guerrini’s leadoff double in the seventh, but the Oklahoma pitcher snared Justin Fox’s line-drive comebacker and fired to second for the double play. Mazey called it “the ultimate deflator,” and Tasin marveled at the combination of agility and coincidence.

“It’s pure reaction,” he said. “(Fox) put a good swing on the pitch and I just happened to catch it. As soon as that happened, you just turn around and see if you can turn two. I was fortunate that (Kyle) Mendenhall was on second base.”

That was the last of 97 pitches for Tasin, who previously beat West Virginia 10-2 on April 19 in the rubber game of a series in Morgantown. This time he allowed seven hits, struck out five and lowered his ERA to 2.52. Three relievers shared the final two innings for Oklahoma, which likely needs to win the tournament to reach an NCAA regional.

“(Tasin) never really givers you a great pitch to hit. He doesn’t really have any patterns,” Mazey said. “He’s a guy you look at and say his stuff’s not that great, but look at his numbers. He really knows how to win.”

Freshman Kyle Davis had one of West Virginia’s nine hits, ending the season on a 12-game hitting streak.

TCU ousted: Regular-season champion TCU (43-11) suffered a stunning two-and-out in Tulsa, bounced by Texas Tech 8-1 in an elimination game Thursday.

It marked the first back-to-back losses this season for the Frogs, who were ranked No. 2 in the USA Today coaches poll and No. 5 by Baseball America. They still hope to snare one of the eight national seeds and remain in line to host an NCAA regional and potentially a best-of-three super regional.

“I think we are a slam dunk national seed, but that’s the least of my concern,” said coach Jim Schlossnagle. “Each team has a story. We are either going to make this a really good story or we’re going to peter out at the end.”

The quick exit was jarring for TCU, which entered the tournament having won 17 of 18 and building aspirations for a second straight trip to the College World Series.

“We’re embarrassed,” shortstop Keaton Jones said. “We didn’t play like who we areā€”not even close.”