Redshirt junior Marcus Armato found himself on his stomach, tangled between the legs of Lehigh University true freshman Nathaniel Brown and down by four points.

“Crawl forward,” coach Mark Cody yelled. “Crawl forward — hard.”

Armato crawled out of the period but not the match. He suffered a major decision loss.

After five matches, No. 10 Oklahoma (12-2, 3-1) was hemorrhaging points to No. 14 Lehigh (9-5) down, 16-0, Sunday afternoon at McCasland Field House. Only an eternal optimist would have predicted the Sooners’ come-from-behind victory.

But today that eternal optimist would be right to believe. Oklahoma defeated Lehigh, 22-16.

The Sooners needed to win every remaining match — with one coming by major decision — just to tie the Mountain Hawks. Knowledge of Oklahoma having to win its remaining matches to secure the dual victory was not lost on Cody.

“I thought, ‘Here we go,’” he said. “I knew we needed to get majors. I knew we needed to get pins, and I thought they’re all very capable of doing that.”

The No.7-ranked 125-pound wrestler in the nation took the mat, as those words worked through Cody’s mind.

“I was thinking that I need to score a lot of points,” junior Jarrod Patterson said. “I feel like I haven’t been wrestling to my ability lately, so I felt like I needed to step it up regardless of what the score was.”

Step it up, he did. Patterson dispatched Lehigh junior Alex Abreu by technical fall, improving to 21-3 this season.

133-pound senior Jordan Keller followed Patterson on the mat, facing Lehigh freshman Mason Beckham. With Sooner points at a premium, Keller wanted to win big.

“Coach Lightner came up to us when the upper weights were wrestling and said we need to step it up for the team,” he said.

The Wichita, Kan. native pinned his opponent in the first two minutes and 59 seconds of the match. He was effusive in his praise of Lehigh after Oklahoma’s win.

“Real technical team — and they fight,” Keller said. “They definitely like to go hard.”

He improved his record to 19-4 this season and vindicated his No. 11 ranking. Keller’s win made way for redshirt sophomore and No. 3-ranked Kendric Maple.

Suddenly, a dual victory didn’t seem completely out of reach for Oklahoma. But Cody didn’t feel that way.

“Even after (Keller’s) pin, I didn’t feel very relaxed,” Cody said.

He had intimate knowledge of just how good Maple’s opponent, No. 15 Steve Dutton, could be.

“I’ve watched Maple’s opponent, Dutton, wrestle quite a bit,” Cody said. “He’s beaten me as a coach a couple times when I was at American University, and beaten us up.”

Maple, Oklahoma’s best hope for an individual national champion, took the mat against Dutton. He secured a major decision victory and brought the Sooners to within two points of Lehigh, down, 16-14, with two matches left to wrestle.

Redshirt sophomore Nick Lester scored the ‘W’ in his 149-pound match, giving the Sooners their first lead of the dual. He set up his brother, Matt, to finish the dual at 157 pounds for Oklahoma’s twelfth victory of the season.

Matt stamped the Sooners’ dual win with a 16-0 technical fall of Lehigh’s Brian Tanen and placed Oklahoma in a position to finish the season undefeated at home.

Oklahoma travels Sunday to Columbia, Mo. to face Missouri. 11 days later, it hosts No. 1 Oklahoma State for its last dual of the season in McCasland.

The Pokes are one of just two teams to defeat Oklahoma this season. Cody wants a win — badly — on Feb. 16.

“We’re gonna put a lot into that, like we have every dual,” he said. “We’re gonna scout them as much as we possibly can and go in there with a game plan. It didn’t work for us last time. Hopefully, it’ll work this time going into the dual.”