Kolby Branch hitting a home run for No. 3 Georgia, down 11–3 against Oklahoma, meant more than an extra run on the scoreboard amid facing elimination at the College World Series.
When Branch rounded second base, he high-fived his brother, Oklahoma sophomore second baseman Kyle Branch. The Sooners won 11– 4 in the CWS semifinal at Omaha, Nebraska, to advance to the CWS finals against North Carolina.
“Unbelievable, you can’t script it up any better,” Kolby Branch told reporters afterward. “It’s a good moment, high-fived him, which is kinda cool, and then I wished him luck in the National Championship.”
Oklahoma, unseeded in the CWS, will take on No. 5 seed UNC, starting on Saturday in a best-of-three game series at Charles Schwab Field. Kyle Branch has been a significant part of the Sooners lineup in the process with a .212 batting average for three home runs and 21 RBI this season.
Kolby Branch, a senior infielder, called it a career for college with that final at-bat, but he can root for his brother going forward. After all, it’s been a familiar affair for the Branches in Omaha.
Hurrdat Sports reported that the umpire for the Georgia-Oklahoma game gave the parents the official lineup cards for the game because of their sons. It marked the first time ever for two brothers to start as opponents in a CWS game.
The Branch brothers grew up in Lucas, Texas, where both became high school baseball stars at Lovejoy High School. Kolby Branch graduated in 2022 and played a year at Baylor before he transferred to Georgia. Kyle Branch graduated in 2024 and became an SEC All-Freshman Team member at Oklahoma in 2025.
The younger Branch helped the Sooners beat Alabama and Georgia twice to reach the final. North Carolina, meanwhile, enters the final after a win over Ole Miss and two wins over West Virginia.
Georgia head coach Wes Johnson believes UNC will be in for a tough series against the Sooners. Oklahoma hasn’t lost since May 30 against Georgia Tech in the Atlanta Regional.
“OU is playing real hot baseball right now,” Johnson told reporters. “They’re at their peak.”
UNC, meanwhile, put forward a peak performance at the plate in the second game against West Virginia on Wednesday. The Tar Heels piled on 16 hits and 11 RBI to beat the Mountaineers 12–7.
“We were joking before the game today, like, ‘Man, we need to have one of those games where we get 15 hits and score some runs,’” Tar Heels coach Scott Forbes told reporters. “So thankfully that happened.”
Tar Heels center fielder Owen Hull had one of the bigger performances in the lineup with 4-5 batting, two RBI and three runs scored. Hull got things started with an RBI double and run scored after a stolen base in the top of the first inning.
“The first thing that Coach told us in our pregame meeting out in the outfield was that we want our compete factor at the top,” Hull told reporters afterward. “That’s what we focused on, and being default aggressive. I think it worked out pretty well.”
It ended West Virginia’s first-ever trip to the CWS. The Mountaineers trailed 12–1 in the top of the seventh inning, but the team closed the gap in the bottom of the seventh with five runs scored.
“You never want to go down,” Mountaineers head coach Steve Sabins told reporters. “If you’re going to go down, for me, being down 12-1 and scratching and clawing and fighting and running out of gas and giving literally everything that you have left in the tank to compete is poetic for me.”
