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Hogs complete sweep of No. 1 Texas

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FAYETTEVILLE — No. 11 Arkansas surprised everyone by sweeping No. 1 Texas this weekend including 13-8 on Saturday before 11,031 fans at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Arkansas had lost three SEC series in a row while the Longhorns had only been defeated in two conference games all season. Dave Van Horn saw his team rally to win Saturday as they trailed for the first time all weekend, The Longhorns took a 3-0 lead in the top of the third, but it didn't last long.
"I mean obviously it’s a great win for our team today," Van Horn said. "It’s hard to beat anybody three times in a row, and especially a good team like Texas. You know, we didn’t get off to a good start. They started two-out rally and then hit a changeup out of the park, and all of a sudden we’re down 3-0. Then we got the Aloy brothers single and homer and we’re right back in it. Then, you know, gave them a run right back. We had a couple of pretty good innings there. I think we scored four. We scored three. They scored three. I mean it’s just back-and-forth. I kept telling our guys no lead’s safe today with the way the wind’s blowing, the air’s thin, the ball’s really traveling."
The Razorbacks used four pitchers. Dylan Carter (5-0) was the third one to take the mound and was rewarded with the win. He pitched 2.2 innings. Carter allowed one hit, no runs, walked a hitter and struck out two.
"I thought Dylan Carter did a nice job of coming in and settling things down," Van Horn said. "He was starting to get a little tired. Pitch count was getting up and obviously we ended up going to (Christian) Foutch. I mean, his misses were so close from the side, it looked like I had a frustrated catcher. We thought maybe some of those pitches were strikes. They were probably 50-50 balls he just didn’t get any of them, I don’t think, there in the eight. But came in and threw pretty good there. Had good velocity. Really didn’t have a secondary pitch, and he’s been doing well with that.
"Starting the game with Landon (Beidelschies), I thought he threw the ball okay. Just, pitch count got up, so we went and got him. Gave us four innings. Gave up four runs and four hits. Four of everything it looked like. We had a bullpen full of fresh arms and we just thought we’d mix it up a little bit. It worked out, you know."
Beidelschies pitched four innings allowing four hits, four runs, two walks and struck out four. Ben Bybee was the second of four pitchers. First baseman Reese Robinett was outstanding. The big lefty hit two home runs and drove in six runs. The Razorbacks hit five home runs on the day. Justin Thomas Jr., Kuhio Aloy and Charles Davalan each had a home run to go with Robinett's pair.
"Today, offensively, it was a lot of patience at the plate," Van Horn said. "3-2 walks. Fouling balls off. A walk, a walk, home run. A walk, home run, and I think we scored all of our runs except that last run on home runs. That’s a good job by the offense getting pitch counts up, fouling off pitches and taking a walk and then we’d have a big swing.
"Obviously, Reese Robinett had his best game as a Razorback. I think he drove in six runs and hit a curveball or a changeup over the scoreboard that was huge for us, and that came right after we let a ball drop in right field. You know, right fielder’s ball. Wind’s blowing that way, he needed to take control of that play. Almost didn’t hurt us, but then they single up the middle with two outs, two strikes, and then the next guy hits a homer and they score three runs. They end up being earned runs because I guess nobody touched it, but really we gave them four outs that inning. They took advantage of it, but a great win on a game three on a Saturday."
Robinett was asked where this kind of game came from?
"I don't know," Robinett said. "You know, just staying patient when I get opportunities. Just kind of take it. They were both splitters and middle-in. The first one, I hit it, and I was like, I really don't know if it's going to get out, so I just ran to play it safe. And then the second one, off the bat, I kind of knew, and reactions kind of took over. And then, the rest is just what it is."
After two scoreless innings for both teams, Texas, as noted earlier, jumped on Beidelschies for three runs in the top of the third on a blast by shortstop Jalin Flores. He also hit another one in the top of the ninth. It was a solo shot.
In the bottom of the third with two outs Wehiwa Aloy singled. Kuhio Aloy followed with a home run over the fence in left center field.
Texas added a run in the top of the fourth when center fielder Will Gasparino doubled to start the inning. Beidelschies retired the next two hitters before Tommy Farmer IV delivered an RBI double for a 4-2 lead.
But the Hogs weren't down long. In the bottom of the fourth, Brent Iredale walked to start the inning. After a fly out, Robinett came up with one down and blasted his first home run to tie the game. However, Ryder Helfrick then walked. Thomas followed that with a two-run home run giving the Hogs their first lead of the game at 6-4.
But Texas had thoughts of their own. In the top of the fifth Ethan Mendoza, the leadoff hitter, doubled to start the inning. Bybee retired the next two hitters before a single by Kimble Schuessler plated him. Gasparino was next up and he hit a home run over the fence in left field for a 7-6 lead.
But in the bottom half of the fifth Iredale walked as did Carson Boles. That brought Robinett to the plate where he hit another shot over the fence for a 9-7 lead. The score stayed that way until the bottom of the seventh when Davalan hit a three-run blast to put the Hogs up 12-7. In the bottom of the eighth Iredale singled to start the inning. Boles hit a ground-rule double to move Iredale to third where he scored on an RBI ground out by Robinett.
Texas used four pitchers. Thomas Burns (0-2), second one to take the mound, took the loss, Max Grubbs started and went 3.1 innings. Dylan Volantis and Jason Flores were the other pair of Longhorn hurlers. They combined to strike out 11 Hogs, walked 10, hit one batter and gave up five home runs.
The Arkansas pitchers struck out nine Longhorns. They walked five and surrendered three home runs. Van Horn talked about what winning the series meant to him and the team.
" We needed to win the series," Van Horn said. "We’d lost three in a row. Like I said a couple of weeks ago, life in the SEC, it’s tough. About the time you think you’ve got it figured out somebody will get you three times on a weekend. Players are good. All the teams have good players, good pitchers. You lose three in a row, that was tough. But we’re playing really good teams. It didn’t go our way. Nobody swept us. We just kept hanging in there, finding a way to win a game, almost win another one and we didn’t do it. Then today, we won the first two games. Today could have been a day where they’re scoring and we’re not pitching real good and they got their guys going, but our guys wouldn’t have any of it. They just kept fighting — fighting for another pitch and let the next guy do the job if I take ball four and three or four times today we did, with home runs."
Arkansas (40-9, 17-7) will be at LSU next weekend. The first game will be Friday at 6:30 p.m. Saturday's game will begin at 5:30 p.m. and then 3 p.m. on Sunday. The games on Saturday and Sunday will be on the SEC Network. Friday's contest can be streamed at the SEC Network+. Arkansas will close the regular season at home hosting Tennessee Thursday, Friday and Saturday May 15-17.
Arkansas 6, Texas 1
Arkansas defeated Texas 6-1 on Friday night at Baum-Walker Stadium in front of 11,074 fans.
Arkansas used strong pitching and took advantage of wildness by the Texas pitchers. Texas walked nine Hogs and hit five more. Gage Wood once again turned in a great performance on the mound. Wood (1-0) worked four innings allowing just two hits, one run and struck out nine which is a career high. Wood didn't issue any free passes. He threw 57 pitches on the night. Dave Van Horn heaped praise on Wood.
"Probably a little better than I thought," Van Horn said of Wood. "I mean, honestly, it’s like he’s picked up right how he was throwing the ball in Arlington, which was really good when he took himself out of the game. Just peppering both sides of the plate. You know, this was his third time out. First time, he didn’t really have the breaking ball. Last week at Florida he had a really good breaking ball. Tonight he had a really good breaking ball. His fastball is electric. Got a lot of carry, Tough to hit, and when he’s ahead in the count it’s tough to hit. Yeah, probably pretty excited about what I’m seeing."
The bullpen for Arkansas was equally good. Gabe Gaeckle worked three innings allowing two hits, walked one and struck out five. Aiden Jimenez worked the final two innings. He allowed one hit, struck out a hitter and walked another.
"I mean, the difference in the ballgame was really pitching," Van Horn said. "I think we walked them twice and struck them out 15 times. I think they walked us nine times, struck us out five. I think they hit us five times. We scratched a couple runs across in the fifth and sixth. Those were big, but really, the big swing was Kuhio’s 0-2, after seeing 0-2 count, saw a couple offspeed pitches. Tried to slip a fastball by him and he smoked it in the gap for three quick RBIs. All of a sudden, we have a four-run lead. Gave us a chance to relax a little bit.
"Gage Wood was really good for four innings. Threw right at the max for what we wanted him to throw. We wanted him to stay just under 60 if possible. I thought he was really good. Struck out nine. I don’t think any walks. Gave up a line-drive home run and you know, (Rylan) Galvin’s a good hitter and got him a fastball, and he didn’t miss it. Yeah, that was a good win for us. We did just enough to find a way to win."
The Hogs took control of the game in the bottom of the second when Brent Iredale sent one over the fence in right field. Then Texas starter Luke Harrison hit Ryder Helfrick and Justin Thomas Jr. while also walking Wehiwa Aloy to load the bases with two outs. Kuhio Aloy cleaned the bases with a double to put Arkansas up 4-0.
Texas got its lone run in the series so far in the top of the fourth when catcher Rylan Galvan hit a solo shot over the fence in left field off Wood.
The Hogs scored one run in each of the fifth and sixth without the benefit of a hit. Arkansas' last hit in a game was a single by Thomas in the bottom of the fourth. Two hit batters and a pair of walks led to an Arkansas run in the fifth. Three walks and hit batter produced an Arkansas run in the sixth. In the game, Arkansas stranded 14 runners.
Harrison (4-1) took the loss for Texas. He pitched four innings allowing all six Arkansas hits, four runs, walked two, struck out a pair and hit a couple of hitters. The Texas bullpen didn't allow a hit among four pitchers. But they did allow two runs while walking seven and hitting three Hogs.
For the second night in a row no Razorback had more than one hit. Charles Davalan, Ryder Helfrick, the Aloy brothers, Iredale and Thomas each had a hit. Kuhio Aloy had three runs batted in. Davalan, Iredale and Reese Robinett each had one RBI.
Arkansas (39-9, 16-7) and Texas (38-7, 19-4) will play the final game of the series on Saturday at 2 p.m. It can be streamed on the SEC Network+. Van Horn still isn't ready to name a starter.
"No, not yet," Van Horn said. "Not 100%. We were just talking about it in the dugout a little bit, but I'll tell you this: It'll either be a right-hander or a left-hander."
Arkansas 9, Texas 0
Arkansas stunned Texas 9-0 Thursday night at Baum-Walker Stadium in the opening game of the series.
Starting pitcher Zach Root stole the show. He pitched eight innings allowing only two hits, striking out 11 and only walking a pair. Will McEntire pitched the ninth to complete the shutout. Dave Van Horn obviously praised Root's best performance as a Razorback.
"Yeah, really, really, really good job by Zach Root tonight, obviously," Van Horn said. "Eight shutout innings against a very, very good baseball team. I felt like once we got the lead he continued to get better. He didn’t start nibbling and looking for strikeouts. He was just trying to get outs. It seemed like his breaking ball got a little better maybe the second half of the game it got a little tighter. Then he had them all going. He had a really good change-up, kept it away. A lot of run and sink. He just did a really good job of getting the leadoff man out and throwing strike one. He got a double play ball and that was big there after we had just scored — I don’t know what we had, maybe five runs there. He gets the leadoff man and gets a double play ball. ... Just a great job."
Root threw 99 pitches. But only allowing two hits and owning a shut out did he fight to pitch the ninth?
"There was no fight because he sat down on the bench," Van Horn said. "I followed Coach (Matt) Hobbs. I watched his reaction and coach basically got him in a headlock. He didn’t react too much. I shook his hand and said ‘great job.’ He’s smart. He knows that was enough pitches. We’ve got some big games coming up and we’re going to need that inning somewhere down the road."
Root talked about what was different against the Longhorns.
"Yeah, it was just going out there," Root said. "Mentality-wise, I gotta just keep the ball all around the plate, and we had a good scouting report on them, and just had to go out and execute that. And gave the bunch of the other pitchers a bunch to look at to see what gets them out and just going out there and set the tone for the rest of the weekend."
The Razorbacks also had an efficient offensive attack. They scored their nine runs on eight hits. The Hogs got the scoring going in the bottom of the second when Brent Iredale laced a double to left field. Carson Boles followed and planted a one-out, two-run blast over the fence in left field for a 2-0 lead.
The Hogs got the long ball going again in the bottom of the third. With two outs and Justin Thomas Jr. on second and Wehiwa Aloy on first, Cam Kozeal blasted a three-run shot over the fence in right field for a 5-0 lead.
The Razorbacks chased Texas starter Ruger Riojas in the bottom of the fourth when they put four more runs on the scoreboard. Boles was hit by a pitch to start the inning. With one out, Ryder Helfrick followed with a single. Thomas then singled to plate Boles. With two outs. Wehiwa Aloy doubled to send both Helfrick and Thomas home for an 8-0 lead. Kuhio Aloy followed with an RBI single that plated Wehiwa Aloy for the final run of the game.
"And then offensively we got some runners on and we got I think four big two-out hits," Van Horn said. "Aloy had a big two-out double to right center. Kuhio followed him with a base hit up the middle with two outs. Kozeal with, I think the count was 0-2 or 1-2, two outs, two on, fought back to a full count and then caught what looked like a hanging breaking ball and hit it either over the scoreboard or off the top of it was a lot of back spin. Just a great at-bat. Just a great job of punching in some runs late in the inning. That gave us an opportunity to separate a little bit."
Cody Howard replaced Riojas and kept the Hogs in check for 3.1 innings. He only allowed one hit, walked a hitter and fanned three. Bryce Navarre pitched the final inning for the Longhorns. Riojas (8-2) took the loss. In his 3.2 innings, Riojas allowed seven hits, nine runs, walked one and struck out four. Texas Coach Jim Schlossnagle admitted he was trying to get more innings from his starter.
“I was trying to have him suck up a few innings,” Schlossnagle said. “I mean that his third start in two weeks, right? Because we did the Saturday deal against Auburn and then we brought him back on Friday to A&M and now it’s Thursday.
“I had a little bit of a premonition this could happen so it is going to be good that he gets the rest and has an extra days rest before we play next week when we play Florida, who is another great offensive team. So it will be interesting to see how he responds to it."
An oddity of sorts is no Razorback had two hits and everyone in the lineup had one except Charles Davalan. Kozeal had three runs batted in, Wehiwa Aloy and Boles two each, Kuhio Aloy and Thomas one each.
The win broke Texas' 10-game winning streak. How big was it to win the series opener?
"Well, you know, it’s like I told the team, that’s just one game and we’ve been here before," Van Horn said. "You still got work to do, but it obviously relaxes you a little bit. Maybe takes a little pressure off of you, but if you lose tomorrow night you’re even up going into Game 3. But there’s not a coach around that’ll tell you, ‘yeah, we’ll go ahead. I don’t care about winning Game 1’. It makes you feel a lot better. It gives you some confidence, as well."



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