Kentucky Gets Its Flowers in Mother’s Day Victory

One week after sitting in the visiting dugout upon being swept and facing its postseason mortality Kentucky convincingly flipped the script and completed a sweep of its own, defeating No. 14 Oklahoma 7-2 on Mother’s Day.

Rotation stalwart Ben Cleaver earned his sixth victory of the season on the mound with  6.0 gutsy innings, five different Wildcats had two hits and Tyler Bell and Luke Lawrence hit back-to-back home runs to help put the Sooners to rest.

UK now is 28-20 overall, 13-14 in the Southeastern Conference and playing some of its best baseball with one week left in the regular season.

The Cats used a three-run fourth inning after Oklahoma had just tied the game to create some space and then put things away with a two-run seventh. The Cats now have 10 victories over ranked teams and 10 Quad I wins against one the toughest SEC slates.

NOTES

• Kentucky is 28-20 (13-14 SEC) on the season.
• UK has held a lead in 24 of 27 SEC games.
• UK now is 10-10 vs. ranked teams and owns 11 Quad 1 victories.
• UK has hit nine triples in its last six games.
• UK was hit by two pitches on the day and now have been hit 135 times in 2025.
  • It entered the weekend ranked third nationally.
  • UK set a new single-season school record for HBP.
  • The last three seasons now are the top three in school history and have totaled 384.
• UK Coach Nick Mingione is in his ninth season at the helm and now owns a 290-186 career record.
  • Mingione is the second-winningest coach in school history.
  • UK is 51-50 in the month of May under Coach Mingione.
  • Mingione now is 3-0 vs. Oklahoma.
• INF Tyler Bell blasted a two-run home run in the fourth inning and now has reached base safely in 47 of 48 career games.
  • He has reached in 20 consecutive games.
• IF Luke Lawrence, OF Carson Hansen, OF Cole Hage and IF Patrick Herrera all had multiple hits in addition to McCoy.
• UT James McCoy went 2-for-3 with a run, an RBI, a double and two walks.
  • He reached base four times.
• UT Ryan Schwartz has a 14-game reached safely streak.
  • Reached base safely in six consecutive plate appearances and six of eight for the series.
  • Started game-winning rally with a leadoff HBP.
  • He has a hit in 12 of the 14 straight games he’s reached base.
• LHP Ben Cleaver produced his fifth quality start of the season.
  • 0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, BB, 8 K
• RHP Simon Gregersen was sensational again in two shutout innings.
  • Since April 1, he has been electric.
    • 9 G, 17.1 IP, 9 H, 1 R, 15 K

 ON DECK

The Cats host Northern Kentucky on Tuesday, May 13. First pitch is at 6:30 p.m. ET on the SEC Network+.