TWINSPIRATION

Witherspoon twins Kyson and Malachi draw inspiration from their determined single mother and each other as their baseball journey leads them to the front of Oklahoma's rotation

- JACOB RUDNER

It simply didn't feel right.

Not the way the ball came out of their hands or crossed the plate. Not the way it scorched off opposing bats or skipped across the outfield grass. Not the feedback from coaches or the results of self reflection.

The twin sons of a single mother, whom they said moved mountains so that they could play baseball, Kyson and Malachi Witherspoon had reached a critical crossroads.

Though it might have been fleeting at the time, the brothers loved the game and wished to keep playing it as long as they could. But after years of their mother's sacrifice, reality started to creep in.

The time was nearing to pay their mother back, to shower her with the same love and care that she had displayed for so long. If it meant moving on from the sport, both brothers were ready.

"We needed to start thinking about how we could help her pay some bills," Malachi Witherspoon said. "We didn't have any offers to go play Division I, and I think if you asked us at the time, we would have told you that it was just time to move on."

Kyson agreed.

"Our headspace for baseball just wasn't there anymore, to some degree," he said. "We were good with it."

But their mother Meg wasn't.

She knew the weight of their decision before they even voiced it. As a mother who had tirelessly driven them to practices, sacrificing her own dreams so they could chase theirs, she could never let them walk away so easily.

She understood the burden they felt, the growing pressure of wanting to give back and take care of her after all she'd done for them. But she wasn't ready to see them give up, not when they had so much talent and potential still left untapped.

The brothers realized that the time to pay her back didn't just mean money or obligations-it meant pushing forward, seeing their journey through to the end. Not for her, but for themselves.