Lj Mercurius turned Oklahoma’s season-ending push into a title shot Wednesday, working 3⅓ innings of relief in an 11-4 win over Georgia and earning his fourth save of the postseason. The Sooners moved into the College World Series championship series, where North Carolina waited next.
That is the role Mercurius has made his own after starting for most of Oklahoma’s season. Skip Johnson shifted him to the bullpen during a rough patch, and the right-hander has answered with stability when the games mattered most. Mercurius said he did not care whether he was starting or coming out of the bullpen if it helped Oklahoma win, and his work against Georgia backed that up.
The run has been built on the Mercurius brothers, both former Southern Nevada high school stars, who have carried Oklahoma through elimination pressure in Omaha. Xander Mercurius earned his first college win Monday with seven strong innings in a 4-3 victory over Georgia in the second round, then Lj followed two days later by closing out the semifinal. Between them, the Sooners got exactly the kind of pitching they needed to get within reach of a College World Series title.
Mercurius leads Oklahoma with 96 strikeouts, along with a 6-7 record, a 4.74 ERA and four saves in 20 appearances. That production is even more notable because it came after the staff reshuffled his job description midseason. He began 2026 in the rotation, then moved into relief as Johnson looked for a better fit, and the change has turned into a postseason weapon rather than a setback.
Oklahoma’s path to Omaha was not smooth. The Sooners were sent into the losers bracket after a loss to Georgia Tech in the Atlanta regional, then beat Georgia Tech twice and Kansas twice in the super regional to reach the College World Series. Lj picked up three saves during that stretch, which made Wednesday’s finish less like a surprise and more like the latest step in a relief job he has embraced.
The championship series began Saturday at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, and Oklahoma went in with the same pitch-by-pitch approach that carried it this far. Johnson said the hardest part is living through one pitch at a time without letting the last one linger, and Mercurius has been one of the pitchers who can do that. If Oklahoma was going to win the title, it would likely do it the same way it reached the final: with Lj Mercurius taking the ball in relief and refusing to let the moment grow bigger than the next pitch.
