Diamond Hogs in position to break out brooms again after 8-3 win over Rebels

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – The top-ranked college baseball team in America will arrive at Baum-Walker Stadium on Saturday with a broom and a 20-game home winning streak.

Wehiwa Aloy hit a second momentum-grabbing home run in as many nights and four Arkansas pitchers combined to scatter six hits as the No. 1 Razorbacks downed Ole Miss 8-3 before an announced season-high 11,234 fans.

Arkansas (26-3, 10-1) beat Ole Miss 5-2 on Thursday and will look to notch its third sweep in its first four SEC series in Saturday’s 2 p.m. series finale against the Rebels (18-15, 3-8), who have lost six straight contests.

“This team reminds me of a couple of our teams in the past that were pretty consistent and just good,” Razorback head coach Dave Van Horn said. “I think about the ’21 team, the ’18 team. Just hard to beat. Pretty consistent.

“Throw the ball over the plate. Field it mostly. We come to the park, we’re confident. I just want our guys to get… You just can’t… You’re not going to win them all. You’re going to get beat.

“But just play. Show up and play hard. And that’s what they’ve done. That’s what we talked to them about and we play with a little bit of energy.”

Ole Miss Andrew Fischer hit two home runs – a solo blast in the first and two-run shot in the third, but the Rebels could only muster four other hits in the contest with all being singles.

Mason Molina started and went 4 1/3 innings before being followed by Koty Frank (2-0), Christian Foutch and Gage Wood.

“You have to credit their pitching staff,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “They were terrific. Terrific day by Fischer, but spoiled just because we don’t pitch it well enough and we don’t do enough offensively beside him to make a run at them.”

Arkansas answered back with four runs in the bottom of the first against Ole Miss starter Liam Doyle (2-2).

Peyton Stovall singled before then Doyle walked three of the net four batters, the last one forcing in a run to tie it 1-1.

Jared Sprague-Lott, who homered on Thursday, had a two-run single and Ryder Helfrick a run-scoring ground out to cap the four-run bottom of the first on Friday.

“There’s no panic with this team,” Sprague-Lott said. “We have a lot of trust in each other and we know we put the work in and somebody’s going to step up.”

Sprague-Lott’s two-run single came on an 0-2 count.

“I got down in the count pretty quick,” Sprague-Lott said. “I saw the infield shifted and I just wanted to put something on the right side of the field.”

Bianco was dismayed with how the bottom of the first developed.

“Just a frustrating night,” Bianco said. “We score in the first…but we gave up four. Liam had another tough first inning and not many games you are going to win when you give up four in the first.

“He hung in there and put up a couple of zeros and then (reliever) Mitch (Murrell) came in and did a terrific job. He was just out of gas probably by the time he came in because he had been warming up since the first inning in the bullpen.

“But he have us a couple of zeros, gave us some life, but after that we didn’t do much offensively.”

There was a fifth-inning play at second base where Fischer was called out for a slide violation on Arkansas second baseman Stovall.

The call not only took a run off the board that would have cut the Razorbacks’ lead to 5-4, but also ended the inning.

“They go to the (replay review) guys in Birmingham,” Bianco said. “Unfortunately they don’t show it a lot here on this board. On our board they would have showed it 25 times.

“Instead it is all at one time from far angle. So we will certainly have to go back and look at it, but that was a tough part of the game.

“But it’s part of it. Some times calls go your way and some times they don’t. And you have got to be able to handle it. That was a tough one.”

Asked if he got an explanation on a play that both team’s challenged, Bianco said the same one the fans got.

“They don’t give us an explanation,” Bianco said. “What you hear is what we get. There was runner’s interference so when it’s runner’s interference, it is an automatic double play, which gets them off the field.

“And even if there was no outs, the run would have come back. It was a tough play for us.”

It thus stayed 5-3 until the sixth when Wes Mendes issued a two-out, four pitch walk to Stovall and Aloy then hit his team-leading eighth home run of the season deep into the night.

Aloy had an RBI ground out in his previous at bat.

Van Horn and Bianco both challenged the original call of a force out at second base.

“Well I was walking out and going to challenge, and then I saw Coach Bianco go out there,” Van Horn said. “He got out there before me. They came over and I asked him what he was doing. They told me he was challenging him being on the bag or not.

“They asked me, that’s the way they’re supposed to go about it, are you going to challenge as well, and what do you want to challenge if you do? I told him I wanted to challenge the slide. See if he went straight into the bag. Figured, what the heck? It worked out.”

It certainly was an impact decision.

“Well, it was big,” Van Horn said. “It had been like if it had been a normal double-play ball. You (Ole Miss) got the bases loaded with one out and you’re down two, you’re thinking as a coach, get the ball to the outfield. Drive in at least one.

“Ball was chopped into the ground. Jared went up and got it. I don’t think he got a grip on it right away, then he threw it a little high. Thought Peyton did a really good job. He kind of became a first baseman first and stretched.

“I think he kept his foot on the bag. That’s what I thought he said. So yeah, it was a big point in the game. Got the ground ball and fortunately we ended up getting a double play out of it.”

Arkansas took advantage of walks for the second consecutive night with eight free passes issued by Ole Miss on Friday and four on Thursday.

“That is why they are very good and win a lot of baseball games,” Bianco said. “We put a bunch of zeros up, but once you give them a little breath and they seem take advantage of it. Aloy hit another big home for them tonight.”

Will Edmonton’s seventh-inning RBI single plated Sprague-Lott and capped the scoring.

Molina went 4 1/3 innings, throwing 83 pitches (39 strikes) while allowing three runs on three hits, fanning five, walking three and throwing a wild pitch.

“He gave up a home run, but the first inning wasn’t bad,” Van Horn said. “Just got a little wild there. That was kind of the kicker. The issue was the off-speed. The issue was that he was having trouble throwing the secondary pitch for a strike in the fourth and maybe most of the game, honestly.

” They were just sitting on his fastball…He didn’t have a great outing, but he gave us a chance. So we appreciate that and we turned it over to the bullpen.”

Frank and Foutch pitched scoreless stints of 1 1/3 each before Wood finished up while fanning five and walking one in two scoreless frames.

Wood showed some of the attitude that he had on the mound last season.

“It felt good,” Wood said. “Just something that I kind of had to pick back up. I tried the ‘been there done that’ feeling since I pitched in some  bigger spots this year. I kind of just got beat around this year and didn’t have the success that I wanted. It was just something I thought I would bring back.”

Photo by John D. James