Caglianone-led Gators end Diamond Hogs’ home winning streak with win in night cap

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – Florida two-way star Jac Cagalinone has accomplished a lot this season and can now add having a big hand in ending No. 2 Arkansas’ 27-game home winning streak to his resume.

“We knew we were going to get beat sometime with who we’re playing,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said of the winning streak. “But yeah, it’s been amazing.

“I told the team, ‘Let’s start a new one.’ I didn’t know how many we won. I said we won 25 or something. I didn’t know how many we had won in a row.

“I told them it’s awfully hard to do because you think of people we’ve beaten here to maintain that streak, it’s been great.”

Caglianone hit a grand slam homer run – his 26th round-tripper of the season and also pitched the first four innings as the Gators downed the Razorbacks 9-5 Saturday in the nightcap of a twinbill.

Arkansas (37-5, 16-5) won Friday night’s game 2-1 and Saturday’s opener 6-5 to clinch the series and tie the school record of 27 straight home victories at George Cole Field in 1984-85.

“I thought overall we played well in three games in 24, 25, 26 hours,” Van Horn said. “It starts to wear on you a little bit, especially when the winds beating on you like the way it was. It just wears you out. 

“But I was proud of our guys. I mean, Florida’s really good. They’re 22-21 overall and 9-12 in the SEC. They could easily be another seven, eight games the other way. They’re dangerous. They’re a dangerous team. They’re physical, they have power, and they have really good arms.

“That’s why in the preseason they were ranked so high. Just another good weekend. I’ll take it, two out of three.”

Florida head coach Kevin O’ Sullivan, whose team was national runner up to LSU at the College World Series last season, saw his team end the weekend with a win.

“That’s the silver lining…that we won one, but at the same time, it was a frustrating weekend,” O’Sullivan said. “…It was a shoulda, coulda weekend. The bottom line is we didn’t. But we did battle today and we are walking out of here with at least one.”

The split left Arkansas a half-game back of Kentucky in the overall SEC race and a game up on Texas A&M in the Western Division.

Kentucky plays a series-deciding game at South Carolina on Sunday and then hosts Arkansas next weekend.

“Yeah, we’re in good position,” Van Horn said.” I mean, we’ve done a good job of taking care of games here in Fayetteville and got a series win last weekend in a tough place, South Carolina. I feel like we’re trending up a little bit on playing on the road.

“We’ve got two tough games (with visiting Missouri State) in midweek and then we get to go to Kentucky. That’s a really tough place to play and we’re going to have to play really good to have success up there.

“Let our guys kind of rest up tomorrow and just do a little on Monday and play baseball for a couple days and then get on the road again.”

Arkansas took a 1-0 lead in second game on Peyton Stovall’s RBI single in the second inning off Caglianone.

Florida’s Michael Robertson tied it 1-1 in the top of the third off Razorback starting pitcher Ben Bybee, making his first SEC start in place of injured normal starter Mason Molina.

The Gators then broke it open with a six-run fourth inning against Bybee and reliever Koty Frank.

Caliagnone, who was intentionally walked four times in Saturday’s contests, came up with the sacks jammed after Florida had take a 3-1 lead.

He emptied the bags by lining a home run over the center field fence to put the Gators up 7-1.

Caglianone the went back to the mound and gave up xx ’s xxx to cut it to 7-3.

Arkansas had Wejiwa Aloy up with two on and two out, but he was called on strikes to end the threat.

“They put together some good at bats against him, but he hung him in there and battled like he always does,” O’Sullivan said. “Obviously the grand slam as a huge, huge for us, especially at that part of the game.

“But the thing that Jax is going to do is even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, he is going to give you a good effort and he did that for us today.

The two teams both added a of couple of runs each the rest of the way.

Stovall had three hits in the second game.

“I think if you ask any team in the SEC if they wanted to be 16-5 right now, they’d take it in a heartbeat” Stovall said. “I think we’re in a really good spot. We just have to keep going out there and keep competing.”

Photo by John D. James