Oklahoma City, Okla. — After eight dominant innings, junior T.J Walz jogged back out to the mound, attempting to finish off a complete game victory over the Sooners.

Whatever the end result, the game was in Walz’ right hand.

“When you’re pitching as well as he was, we were going to give him an opportunity to win or lose the baseball game,” coach Ritch Price said.

Unfortunately for Walz and Kansas (31-25-1) that result was all too familiar.

Oklahoma again came from behind to best Kansas, this time with a dramatic ninth inning rally, to steal a 3-2 victory at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark.

Walz took a tough-luck loss, finishing with 8 1/3 innings pitched, allowing three runs on three hits while striking out five. The junior had allowed only two hits, both singles, before the ninth.

Kansas capitalized on a few Oklahoma mistakes to stake a 1-0 lead in the second inning.

Junior third baseman Tony Thompson led off the inning with a walk, and advanced to second on a wild pitch.

Two outs later, senior first baseman Brett Lisher singled to deep shortstop, where Caleb Bushyhead fired an errant throw that skipped into the Jayhawk dugout, allowing Thompson to trot home from third.

Though the Sooners tied the game in the fifth on an RBI groundout, the Jayhawks quickly regained a one run edge at 2-1 on when Thompson lifted a sacrifice fly to right field in the sixth.

With a slim margin for error and a steadily mounting pitch count, Walz allowed a leadoff single to Garrett Buechele to begin the ninth, which set the Sooner comeback in motion.

Next up, Cameron Seitzer laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to advance pinch runner Eric Ross to second, and then Walz walked Tyler Ogle on a 3-2 pitch while the Ross stole third.

That brought up right fielder Cody Reine, who lifted a high fly ball to straight away center field.

On a muggy night where many hard hit balls seemed to quickly run out of steam, Reine’s shot carried over junior Brian Heere’s head, and clanked off the base of the wall.

Ross easily scored from third, and Ogle motored around the bases to score the winning run, sending a stream of elated Oklahoma players onto the field.

“If that wasn’t Sooner magic, I don’t know what is,” Oklahoma coach Sunny Galloway said.

Walz and the Jayhawks were left to trot slowly off the field, falling for the third straight game to come-from-behind effort by the Sooners after two similar defeats at Hoglund Ballpark last weekend.

Now Kansas, it’s status on the bubble for an NCAA Tournament bid looking increasingly bleak, faces two more must-win games this weekend.

“We still have a couple of games to go,” Thompson said. “We need to come out and play well and we still have a shot to get in the championship game and make a little noise.”