Diamond Hogs notebook: Kuhio Aloy provides power, DVH updates OSU scrimmage details

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – It appears there is going to be even more Pineapple Power on this season’s Arkansas baseball squad.

Newcomer Kuhio Aloy, one of three Hawaiian-born players on the Razorback roster, launched two bombs at Baum-Walker Stadium in a trio of Diamond Hog scrimmages this weekend.

While playing first base, BYU transfer Aloy went 5 of 11 in the three scrimmages with 7 RBIs and has now hit 3 bombs in the last four scrimmages.

It was a welcome sight for Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn, who also has Kuhio’s older brother Wehiwa and Nolan Souza as current Hawaiian-born Razorbacks.

“Really the ball just explodes off his bat,” Van Horn said this week on 103.7 The Buzz show The Zone . “He seems to be getting better and better. He DH’d at BYU last year and they recruited him as a pitcher. How about that?

“Then they started hitting him and he hadn’t taken BP in six months, hit all spring and the hit some homers. In fact, I think he led them in homers (with 8) as a freshman.”

The younger Aloy was 3 of his first 18 in fall scrimmages before locking in this weekend.

“We are just trying to get a little bit of the swing and miss out of him,” Van Horn said. “Because when he hits it, his exit velocity is the best on the team. We record every swing with all this technology in batting practice and everything and his exit velocity is the best on the team. He is really strong.

“Wehiwa is really polished. He hit a ball the other day, a line drive (home run) that I think went 440 feet and was like at 113 (miles per hour) off the bat. We were like ‘wow, that was amazing.’

“But his little brother, who is bigger than him, has some bat speed and some strength. We just have got to get him a position a littler bit more. He has speed enough that he can play the outfield. But it is about the bat.”

Wehiwa Aloy and Souza combined for 21 of Arkansas’ 87 home runs last season with the older Aloy having a team-leading 14 blasts.

Van Horn believes Souza, who hit .255 with 7 homers and 28 RBIs last season, has the potential to be one of the best players in country.

“He just needs to continue to get better and better,” Van Horn said. “We have some days with him where we just kind of go ‘wow, this guys has the most talent of anybody around because he can run, he has power.

“Last year when he hit that ball over the scoreboard into the wind when I was just hoping somebody could clear the fence. There is only a few guys in the country that can do that who are in college.”

Souza, who flourished early last before struggling to the finish line, could play a variety of positions for Arkansas.

“He has played some second (this fall), he has played short, if we need to put him at first we will put him at first if we need to,” Van Horn said. “He is a good defender. Again we need his bat.

“He has got to get more consistent. But when he does that, he is going to be one of the best players in the country. I just hope it happens while he is here.”

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Arkansas will host a Fall Classic exhibition next Friday night at 6 and then clash with visiting Oklahoma State on Friday night Oct. 12 and Saturday afternoon Oct. 13.

“We are going to play Oklahoma State… on a Friday night and start at 6 o’clock and it will be open to the public,” Van Horn said. “I think it is going to be, I don’t know, I think they are going to try and raise some NIL money for us. Hopefully we will have a really good crowd.

“We’ll throw 7 or 8 pitchers that night, maybe a couple of freshmen that are really talented, some of our returnees and maybe a couple of our transfers that we got in that we are planning on being a big part of our staff.

“The next day on Saturday, we are going to turn around and start around noon or 1 and we may play 10 or 11 or 12 innings and get in all the pitchers that we want to throw.

“We’ll keep score and we will play it to win and see how it goes.”

Because of the match up with Oklahoma State, the Razorbacks will not play a multi-game Fall World Series as it has in the past.

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Van Horn likes the mix he has with 31 new faces out of 50 players on the roster.

“We have been together since our first meeting, which was the 20th of August,” Van Horn said. “I really like how the team seems to be really getting to know each other a little bit and hanging out.

“You know it takes time…College athletics now is just a little different with the portal, a lot of things going on, a lot of movement. A lot of times you don’t have a group that has been together three or four years and really know each other and they are buddies.

“So we have to try and develop that a little bit and I think we have done a pretty do a good job with it and talk about it. We talk about a lot of things. We talk about NIL money. We get the elephant out of the room from day one.

“Maybe this guy is getting this, this guy is getting that, another guy over there thinks he should be getting this or that and you’ve got problems.

“I just tell them this is real world things, real life and we have got to move off of that.”

Arkansas has had 10 scrimmages so far and Van Horn has noted fall ball will end with the Oklahoma State contests.

“I think it has been going good,” Van Horn said. “On the field’s been good. Fall Ball can be a little bit monotonous to some guys that have been playing a lot of ball, play summer ball and come back and play ball again right away and already have two fall balls.

“The new guys know they need to get our attention. But overall I like what I see. I like the talent. I like the make up and the athleticism is better so so far so good.”

• • •

Van Horn got a welcomed double bonus when veterans Will McEntire and Diggs both decided to use one more year of eligibility.

“We thought it was 50-50 at best on both of them,” Van Horn said.

McEntire roared out of the gate lasts and finished 5-0 with a 4.83 ERA in 30 appearances, but seem to tire in the latter stages of the season after being used so much early.

“With McEntire, he had been here a while and I don’t think he liked the way it finished, the way he was throwing and and the way the season ended,” Van Horn said. “And with his situation, still in school and working on a master’s or whatever, he’s just like ‘hey, I got another year, I love playing baseball, I love playing here’ and he wanted to do it so we loved having him back.”

Diggs was a second-team All-SEC selection in 2023 while hitting .299 with team highs in home runs (16) and RBIs.

He was hurt with a shoulder injury almost throughout most of the 2024 the season with a shoulder injury and saw his numbers dip to .229, 7 home runs and 34 RBIs.

“The guy was really hurt, more than we knew, hurt more than he knew,” Van Horn said. “…He tore it, but it didn’t show up on the first MRI, but it showed up later on another after he want into the wall at Kentucky.

“He ended up having six anchors in that arm or that shoulder, or staples or whatever you want to call it. It was pretty rough, but luckily it is his non-throwing arm.

“He is not doing anything with us right now except lifting with the lower half and exercises. He can’t swing the bat.

“It will be another month and a half or two months and he will begin swinging the bat and get him ready for spring. If we get the guy we used to have before he got torn up, that is going to be a big get.”

Photo courtesy of Arkansas baseball