Arkansas slugs season-high six homers in wacky 17-9 NCAA Tournament win over SEMO

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE -  Arkansas survived and advanced Friday afternoon in a wacky opening game of the NCAA Baseball Tournament Fayetteville Regional that went  completely off the rails midway through the contest.

The Razorbacks raced away to an 8-0 lead in the second inning,  coughed it all up and then saw Wehiwa Aloy, Kendall Diggs, Ben McLaughlin and Hudson White all hit home runs as Arkansas outlasted SEMO 17-9 at Baum-Walker Stadium.

“What a wild first game of a regional,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “The ball was really traveling today. There were a lot of clutch swings by both teams, and very rarely you get out to an eight-run lead and you see it disappear.

“A lot of times that isn’t good for your team. Maybe you get a little demoralized or whatever, but our team hung in there. Kept saying, hey, we’ve got a seven-inning game, or a six-inning game ahead of us. Just keep going, and they did it.”

Arkansas (44-14) advances to a winners’ bracket semifinal on Saturday night at 8 p.m. against the winner of Friday night’s late contest between second-seeded Louisiana Tech (45-17) and third-seeded Kansas State (34-25).

The Razorbacks will have pitching ace Hagen Smith (9-1, 1.48) ready to go in that game as he was held back to pitch on Saturday instead of against the Ohio Valley Conference tournament champions Redhawks (34-26).

Arkansas hit a season-high six home runs and score and campaign-best 17 runs in the win, which ended a three-game losing streak wrapped inside a 3-7 stretch in the final 10 games.

McLaughlin had three of those hits while slugging two home runs and doubling while driving in six runs with White also launching a pair blasts and having five RBIs.

“Yeah, I’m just proud of the way we competed at the plate,” White said. “You know, we’ve been working hard all season. I felt like we were kind of due for a game like that. I’m proud of the group.”

McLaughlin, who had homered since mid-April, echoed those same sentiments. 

“I just feel like this is a big team win for us,” McLaughlin said. “We know our pitchers are always going to throw well, and just responding the way we did up 8-0 and then tying it 8-8, I just feel like that was a huge team win for us.”

Redhawks head coach Andy Sawyers, who played his senior season for Van Horn at Nebraska, was impressed with the Razorback bats,

“I guess I want to talk to whoever said Arkansas couldn’t hit,
Sawyers said. “That was the narrative kind of coming into it, was one of the best pitching staffs in the country, but had struggled offensively. 

“…I was pleased with how our group competed. We went down 8-0 and found a way to come back and even it out at 8-8 and made it 10-9.”

Sawyers lamented the fact that his team allowed Arkansas to score seven runs in the second, four more in the seventh and had three errors in the game.

“I thought what really hurt us were the two big innings,” Sawyers said. “The seven in the second and then the four, I think, in the sixth (seventh).

“We made mistakes on the dirt and that was kind of not my fear, but Arkansas hit inside today in the Fowler (Indoor Prague Facility). They had asked if we wanted to go inside. I think the grounds crew wanted us to go inside.

“But I said, no, we want to hit outside because we wanted to get the ground balls on the natural surface. Sometimes we play probably 85% of our games on turf. Sometimes that overspin ground ball, when it takes that second and gets to the clay, it kind of speeds up on you.

“We just didn’t play good enough defense on the dirt, and I think we probably gave them six unearned runs. That’s probably something therein lies the difference.” 

Arkansas jumped to its 8-0 advantage on White’s solo home in opening inning followed by the seven-run second frame that was capped by the first of McLaughlin’s two three-run blasts in the game.

The Razorbacks sent 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the second inning, which interestingly started and ended with Ryder Helfrick striking out.

Aloy’s hustling double began the explosion before Kendall Diggs was hit by a pitch and Peyton Holt delivered an RBI single to make it 2-0.

Holt had to be taken out of the game late when he cramped up.

Diggs scored on a fielder’s choice and an error, Jared Sprague-Lott had a two-run single and then McLaughlin launched his eighth home run of the season for the 8-0 lead.

But Southeastern Missouri State got four runs in the third against Arkansas starter Mason Molina, who lasted just 2 1/3 innings, and four more in the fifth against Razorback reliever Will McEntire, who entered to get the final out of the third.

Six of runs came via two swings with Ben Palmer’s three-run homer coming in the third and Josh Cameron launching a three-run blast in the fifth that ended the day for McEntire.

“I thought we were gonna win in the middle of the game,” Sawyers said. “I did. I mean, this team has done some cool stuff all year long. We were pretty banged up early in the year and we probably should have won the league if we’d been healthier.

“They showed great resilience down the stretch. We lost a very emotional game in the first championship game in our conference tournament and had to come back and play another game and our guys showed a lot of resilience all year long.

When we made it 8-8, I legitimately thought we were gonna win the game, like, without a doubt. I think we scored the eight and then I had to go do my in-game interview.

“ I think in the bottom of the fifth I had to go do the TV thing, and they asked what we needed, and I said we need a couple zeros. Like, we’re going to score again. We need some stops, and we just didn’t get enough stops.”

Van Horn was thinking his team would respond.

“I was thinking the same thing, we were going to win,” Van Horn said. “ Basically I was saying what I was thinking to the players. I was telling the guys that were in the dugout when they hit the three-run homer to tie it, I walked up and down the dugout and I said, ‘When the guys get off the field, you guys gotta tell them they’re fine. We still have five, six innings to play and it’s 0-0, 1-1, whatever you want to say, it’s tied. We’ve got a lot of game left.’

“I thought the dugout did a good job there and we were all kind of talking our language in there.”

Winning pitcher Christian Foutch (1-0) got the final two outs of the top of the fifth and was rewarded with his first decision as his team answered back in the bottom of the fifth.

Aloy and Diggs hit back-to-back, two-out home runs on back-to-back pitches from two different pitchers to put the hosts up 10-8.

“It fired up the dugout a lot,” Van Horn said. “Just to even score one after they had just punched in four to tie it up there in the fifth and then we end up getting another home run, you’re feeling pretty good… But yeah, that was big for us to score when they had just scored those runs.”

McLaughlin loved seeing Diggs have two hits after a subpar regular season.

“We all know if we want to go where we want to go, Diggs is going to be right at the front of it,” McLaughlin said. “We weren’t worried at all. He’s a great baseball player. It was good to see him get some knocks today and it’s really going to help this team.”

The Redhawks got a run back in the seventh off Arkansas reliever Gabe Gaeckle, but White’s sacrifice fly and McLaughlin’s second three-run blast provided a four-run bottom of the seventh and a 14-9 edge.

White finished off the scoring with a three-run homer in the eighth and Jake Faherty then pitched the ninth inning to close things out.

“Gabe came in and settled it down a little bit,” Van Horn said. “Christian got through I think what was the (fifth) inning, and then Gabe came in after that. Could have gone back out in the ninth.

“We were just trying to save him a few pitches. Even before we scored the runs, we had already made the decision to take him out.

“It was one of those games, if you give them something, they were going to score. They kicked a couple balls for us and we ended up scoring. When we walked them, they scored. That’s a really good offensive team.”

Photo by John D. James

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NCAA Fayetteville Regional

Friday, May 31
Game 1 – #1 Arkansas 17, #4 SEMO 9
Game 2 – #2 Louisiana Tech vs. #3 Kansas State – 7 p.m. (ESPN+)

Saturday, June 1
Game 3 – SEMO vs. Game 2 Loser – 2 p.m. (TBD)
Game 4 – Arkansas vs. Game 2 Winner – 8 p.m. (TBD)

Sunday, June 2
Game 5 – Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Loser – 1 p.m. (TBD)
Game 6 – Game 4 Winner vs. Game 5 Winner – 6 p.m. (TBD)

Monday, June 3 (If Necessary)
Game 7 – If the Game 5 Winner Wins Game 6 – TBD