Aloy’s big day powers Arkansas to winning weekend with a 8-6 victory over Michigan

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

For the third time in as many years, Arkansas will come home from Globe Life Field after two wins in three games at the home of the Texas Rangers.

Wehiwa Aloy homered while going 4 for 4 and coming up just a triple short of hitting for the cycle as the No. 5 Razorbacks (6-1) held on late to beat Michigan 8-6 at the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series in Arlington, Texas.

“I did good and I just competed out there in the (batter’s) box and this was just a really good team win,” noted Aloy, who is now hitting. 500 (14 of 28) with four home runs and 9 RBIs.

Arkansas scored just a pair of runs in each of its two previous weekend contests – a 3-2 loss to Kansas State on Friday night and 2-1 win over TCU on Saturday.

“We played two nail biters and didn’t play great on Friday and didn’t win,” Arkansas head coach Dan Van Horn said. “We played pretty good yesterday, didn’t make many mistakes and we won.

“Today it looked like we played to midnight and got up early and played again honestly. A little sloppy and we are a lot better than that.”

The Razorbacks led 8-1 after Aloy’s solo blast in the fifth, but the Wolverines plated two runs in the sixth, another in the eighth and two unearned runs in the ninth to cut it to 8-6.

Tate McGuire entered to pitch at that point, getting the save on a ground out from Will Rogers, who was the go-ahead run at the plate.

Charles Davalan added a pair of hits for the Razorbacks while Kendall Diggs, Brent Iredale, Cam Kozeal and Zane Becker all added one even as their team was out-hit 11-10.

Arkansas will return to action on Tuesday when it faces Grambling at 3 p.m. to begin a 10-game home stand.


“I did like the approach of three or four of our hitters,” Van Horn said. “We have just got to get some guys going. We’ll get to play at home for awhile before we go on the road again for conference play. We’ll get things figured out.”

Arkansas starting pitcher Gage Wood fanned six and allowed an unearned run on two hits and a hit batter in two innings.


But Wood (39 pitches, 29 strikes) exited after throwing one warm up pitch before the third inning with a shoulder issue.

“It’s in the shoulder, but it is in a different spot,” Van Horn said about an earlier Wood injury. “We have got an MRI set up for tomorrow, but the doctors feel good about it.”

That brought in Dylan Carter (2-0), who went two scoreless inning before Cole Gibler, Will McEntire, Jackson Wiggins, Parker Coil and McGuire follow him to the he mound for the Razorbacks.

“I thought we came out offensively and did a good job or working walks, we got hit by pitches and drove in a few runs,” Van Horn said. “I thought our starter was throwing the ball good until he got hurt.

“Obviously we were planning on him going five and that threw a little bit of a wrench in our pitching plans.”

McEntire allowed back-to-back homers in the sixth by Michigan’s Cole Caruso and Robert Hamchuk to cut it to 8-3.

Jonathan Kim’s sacrifice fly cut it to 8-4 in the eighth after a wild Wiggins was pulled after just seven pitches.

“Great job really by most of our pitchers,” Van Horn said. “Coil did a great job in the eighth – gets three outs on five pitches.

“Wiggins was the one – we hadn’t seen that. We had not seen that. That guy had thrown nothing but strikes, but maybe the moment was a little big for him and he’ll be better next time.

“We left too many runners of bases today and the ninth inning got sloppy,” Van Horn said “…Weird things happen in this game (of baseball) – walks and whatever and they were right back in it.”

Photo courtesy of Razorback Communications