Oklahoma banks on JUCO grit to reach CWS finals

Oklahoma JUCO – Skip Johnson’s Oklahoma Sooners aren’t built like a traditional, portal-first powerhouse. They leaned heavily on junior college transfers—13 JUCO players in all—and on players like Deiten Lachance, Dayton Tockey and Trey Gambill to power a run that has the Soo

For Oklahoma, the path to June isn’t tidy. It’s designed like a gamble that has to keep cashing checks.

Skip Johnson knows what people say about his roster—how they get there. who he recruits. and why he trusts players before their ceiling is fully tested at the highest levels. This year. though. the Sooners are living out the bet in real time. reaching the College World Series finals in 2022 and now taking aim again. with a lineup that looks less like a blueprint and more like a collection of underdogs. And it’s the junior college pipeline—fed by JUCO transfers—that has become the connective tissue of the run.

Oklahoma’s CWS run is led by players who arrived from junior colleges and carried their toughness into Omaha. Deiten Lachance. a catcher with a reputation for grit. homered in the first game of the CWS after turning his ankle. then hobbled around the bases. Dayton Tockey spent much of the season struggling before becoming one of the tournament’s biggest hitters; his biggest home run came as an extra-innings walk-off against No. 2 Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Trey Gambill also swung in the postseason—homering and finishing with four hits and three RBIs against Georgia in the semifinals on June 17.

They share a common origin: each came to Oklahoma from junior colleges, and Johnson has made it his operating system—looking for a glimmer in rough spots and then betting that the jump to Division I is more about toughness and feel than flawless polish.

Johnson’s recruiting history already hints at why this roster looks the way it does. He has long been “a JUCO hound.” In 2022. David Sandlin posted a 9-4 record after coming to Norman from Eastern Oklahoma State College. Tanner Tredaway hit .370 after transferring from Seminole State College. Johnson’s argument isn’t that every JUCO player will translate perfectly. because he acknowledges the difficulty outright—baseball jumps can be huge. and there’s no certainty how a player’s game will hold up at the next level. But he says he can recognize something valuable early: toughness.

“The JUCO guys, I just think that they’ve had their teeth kicked in a little bit. They’re hungry,” Johnson said to On3 during the tournament.

That hunger shows up in how the Sooners are playing now. This is not a team devoid of emotion. You still see flipped bats and pitcher stare-downs. But the roster also carries a different kind of resilience—Lachance shrugging off a rolled ankle as a “lower body injury. ” limping the bases while pumping his fist in celebration; Tockey fouling a pitch off his groin against Georgia Tech and four innings later sending Oklahoma to super regionals with a home run over the batter’s eye.

The storyline isn’t just individual impact. It’s how the team responds when it’s losing.

Oklahoma went 3-6 in May and dropped seven of its last 10 before sliding into a new low in the SEC tournament. The turning point came with a 6-2 loss to LSU. a defeat Johnson and the program now have to carry as context as they chase the biggest stage. After Oklahoma defeated Georgia on June 17, Johnson told reporters, “You’re lookin’ at a baseball team. A selfless baseball team. Which is really fun to be around, and hopefully I can just stay outta the way over the next… two games or three games.”.

Even the way the players talk after games circles back to the same themes—playing as a team. learning from each other. putting the team first. And Johnson’s claim is that it has a practical effect on the roster’s ability to win in the moment: players who might usually come in late can come in earlier. and pitchers who hadn’t been regular starters through much of the year can get those postseason starts and deliver.

That roster build shows up in the numbers. Oklahoma brought 13 JUCO transfers to Omaha—more than any other team took to the College World Series. The list:

Gerardo Prado (Amarillo Community College)
Nate Smithburg (Indian Hills Community College)
Deiten Lachance (McLennan Community College)
Gavyn Jones (McLennan Community College)
Kadyn Leon (McLennan Community College)
Jaxon Grossman (Salt Lake Community College)
Trey Gambill (Salt Lake Community College)
Brendan Brock (Southwestern Illinois Community College)
Myles Davis (State College of Florida)
Reid Hensley (Tyler Community College)
Dayton Tockey (Weatherford Community College)
Trent Collier (Weatherford Community College)
Uriah Walters (Weatherford Junior College).

On the mound, Oklahoma has leaned on a pitching group that feels like its own recruiting payoff. Cord Rager, Xander Mercurius, and Nick Wesloski are described as a “secret sauce” of the run. Rager. who was a year-long starter. has been moved up to a de facto Friday night starter after struggles to find the zone from Cam Johnson. Mercurius took a spot in the rotation while his brother, LJ, has been starting throwing out of the pen. Wesloski made his second start of the season against a Georgia lineup that raked all season.

The Sooners’ likely rotation—Rager, Mercurius, Wesloski—is expected to be the trio North Carolina sees as Oklahoma continues to push its future into the present.

And for all the attention on the JUCO pipeline, Oklahoma hasn’t ignored the transfer portal. Johnson and the Sooners do have 10 transfers on the roster. including Camden Johnson. a Wichita State transfer who made a brilliant play at third against Georgia to end an inning and likely save extra bases. LJ Mercurius, the elder, is also a transfer from UNLV who joined the Sooners with his brother.

That matters because one common criticism of roster building through the portal is chemistry—how long it takes for players to connect and find rhythm. Oklahoma’s current messaging is that chemistry isn’t a problem for this group.

When Johnson was asked about the value of cohesiveness versus “checks written. ” he praised his team’s camaraderie in the postgame news conference. “That’s what’s really unique and really special about it. is they made that decision as a team to pick each other up. ” Johnson said. “I mean. when I talked to the team before I came into the press conference. I said every guy matters in this dugout or in this locker room right now.”.

He added, “And it’s truly true, because I’ve played on national championship teams, not at this high a level. But when you meet up, you don’t know who got the biggest hit or who threw the most important pitch. You don’t… That’s what the little details matter in this game. They go overlooked all the time. And that’s all coaching. That’s all our coaches do, making them pay attention to details and stuff like that.”.

The claim is that it’s working now—Oklahoma described as running on “vibes,” and those vibes are reaching a peak with North Carolina looming for the ultimate prize.

The College World Series finals schedule sets up the next swing for the Sooners. Game 1 is No. 5 North Carolina vs. Oklahoma at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 20, on ESPN (Fubo). Game 2 is also No. 5 North Carolina vs. Oklahoma at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, June 21, on ABC (Fubo). If there is a deciding game, Game 3 (if necessary) is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday, June 22, on ESPN (Fubo).

For Oklahoma. it’s a final built on the idea that the toughest parts of baseball—injuries. struggles. the jump in competition. and the pressure of doing it together—aren’t solved by one recruiting strategy. They’re answered, game after game, by the players Johnson has chosen and the mindset they brought with them.

Oklahoma baseball Skip Johnson JUCO transfers College World Series finals Deiten Lachance Dayton Tockey Trey Gambill North Carolina transfer portal college baseball recruiting