Arkansas puts itself in Fayetteville Regional driver’s seat with 12-1 bashing of Creighton

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – Arkansas pitcher Zach Root looked like a man on a mound on a mission Saturday night and his teammates gave him plenty of runs with which to throw in a relaxed manner.

Root tossed six scoreless innings of three-hit baseball as the top-seeded Razorbacks hammered third-seeded Creighton 12-1 in the NCAA Baseball Tournament Fayetteville Regional winners bracket game.

It delighted a a packed house of 10,115 at Baum-Walker Stadium and brought Arkansas (45-13) – the No. 4 national seed – a win away from advancing to and hosting a Super Regional.

Razorbacks Wehiwa Aloy and Ryder Helfrick both hit two home runs in the contest and Cam Kozeal continued his hot hitting with a two-run homer while having three hits for a second straight day.

“I just thought we played a complete game,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “We pitched great, played good defense and obviously got some timely hits.

“They put us on base a few times – walked us probably 10 or 12 times. Some of them were in the middle of the game where we grabbed control a little bit.”

The Blue Jays had won 14 of their last 15 games and 22 of their last 24 under retiring head coach Ed Servais.

“Arkansas played a heck of a game and I give them a lot pf credit,” Servais said. “They were good in all three phases. The pitcher was outstanding, threw a lot of pitches, three quality pitches.

“Obviously offensively they were on point today, hit several home runs and on defense really made some plays so I give them all the credit for the win.

“Really it starts on the mound. When you have a pitcher throwing like that on the mound, it relaxes you.

“And we walked 12 hitters. There is now way you can beat a team like this when you walk 12 hitters.”

The Razorbacks had lost in this Saturday night game the last two seasons, a game that determines whether you have to win one more of three more to win the regional.

Van Horn noted that Gage Wood will start on Sunday night with a pretty rested bullpen ready to go.

“You go 2-0 instead of 1-1 and mentally it’s a big difference,” Van Horn said. “You know how many games you have to win just to get to Monday and it weighs on you.

“Winning this game and not having to get into our bullpen too much is good with the thought we have a lot of guys ready to go.”

Arkansas will get its first chance to lock that championship down Sunday night at 8 p.m against the winner of Sunday afternoon’s 2 p.m. elimination game between Creighton (42-15) and North Dakota State (21-32).

If Arkansas were to lose on Sunday night, it would set up a winner take all game on Monday at a time to be announced.

Creighton needs three victories to move on beginning with Sunday’s 2 p.m. elimination game against North Dakota State.

North Dakota State, which lost 6-2 to Arkansas in Friday afternoon, ousted second-seeded Kansas 4-3 in a Saturday afternoon elimination contest.

Root (7-5) fanned seven, walked one and hit a batter while throwing 94 pitches, 56 for strikes.

“Zach threw the ball well, threw a lot of strikes and made them earn everything they got,” Van Horn said. “They hit a couple of balls hard at us, but for he most part, I thought Zach just did a tremendous job of setting the tone and offensively we got some big hits with two outs that got us seperation.”

Root’s fast ball got as high as 98 miles per hour in the game.

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Ben Bybee, Steele Eaves and Colin Fisher all pitched an inning for Arkansas to close out the game.

Kozeal got the scoring going in top of the second inning with a one-out, solo home run off Creighton starting and losing pitcher Wilson Magers (6-3).

The Razorbacks pushed that lead to 2-0 later in the inning when Charles Davalan was hit with a two-out, bases-loaded pitch that forced in Brent Iredale.

That advantage grew to 4-0 in the third as Kozeal doubled in Maxwell and Reese Robinett’s two-out single plated Kozeal.

Aloy delivered a three-run blast in the fifth against Creighton reliever Shea Wendt to make it 7-0.

Helfrick then unloaded with a solo shot leading off the top of the sixth.

Both Aloy and Helfrick delivered two-run home runs in seventh as Arkansas stretched its lead to 12-0.

Aloy is one of seven Razorbacks that have double digit home runs this season.

He has a team-leading 20 blasts while Kozeal has blasted 15, Davalan, Iredale and Kuhio Aloy all 13 each, Helfrick 11 and Maxwell 10.

Creighton, who had 16 hits in a 11-4 win over Kansas on Friday night, was limited to just five hits on Saturday.

The only extra-base hit off the five was Ben North’s double in the sixth being the only extra base one.

The Blue Jays avoided the shutout on Tate Gillen’s fielder’s choice that scored a run against Bybee in the seventh.

Photo by John D. James