Diamond Hogs put up 10-run inning to rally past Charlotte for 11-10 victory

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – It is not often that you let the other team score five runs before you even bat and still win a baseball game.

But it’s also rare to put up 10 runs in an inning and both happened Friday afternoon as No. 4 Arkansas used that explosive inning to edge Charlotte 11-10 at Baum-Walker Stadium.

“I told you this team’s pretty tough early,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “I like the make up of the team and they have a little bit of an attitude and they’ve very confident and they’re talented. When we came back and won the first game of the year, kind of let a lead slip away, I didn’t see anybody panic in there.

“Came back and punched in a couple. They gave it to us, but we took it. Still had to earn it. Same today. You get into the seventh or eighth and you’re down eight runs, it makes it a little more difficult. But we had time and they’re pretty fearless. They feel like we can do it.”

Logan Maxwell, whose solo blast started the comeback for Arkansas (8-1) from a 9-1 deficit in the fourth inning, dubbed the game fun.

“It was really fun,” Maxwell said. “Kind of showed like how resilient this team is and the fight we have, being able to never give up and we’re never out of a game. So, I think it was good for us to know that we’re never out of anything and we can always come back and get back in the ball game.””

Arkansas pitcher Parker Coil echoed those same sentiments.

“Yeah, it was one of the crazier games I’ve been part of during my time here, especially the first inning,” Coil said. “But, going back to what Max just said, it’s a good testament to this team, just how we fight and come together.

I don’t think anyone on the team thinks any one moment is too big for one another or if one spot seems too great to overcome. I think that we all stick together really well and we all know what we’re good at, just kind of stick to the game plan.” 

The 49ers jumped out to the 9-1 lead by putting up 5 runs on 5 hits against Razorback starting pitcher Gabe Gaeckle in the opening inning and four more tallies in the top of fourth inning to end the sophomore’s day.

“I was really proud of the way our guys approached the game today,” Charlotte head coach Robert Woodard said. “I thought we looked very much ready to play and I thought our guys got after it from the jump.

“(But) this place (Baum-Walker Stadium) just kept getting more filled and more filled and you could feel the energy just go up and up as we knew it would.”

Van Horn didn’t think the game was over for his team because it had only been to plate a trio of times.

“It’s like I told the team, we were down eight or nine to one and I still thought we had a chance to win because we’d only hit three times,” Van Horn said. “We had at least six more bats. I know we’ve got a good offense.

“You get down like that and the wind’s blowing straight in, it makes it a little more difficult because a lot of times you have to win with a grand slam home run or get back in the game with a big swing, but yeah, I think when you come back.”

As it turned out, Arkansas needed just a half inning to take the lead while sending 16 batters to the plate with 8 hits, 3 walks, pair of hit batters and some misplays – even if there no errors were officially committed.

“When you’re kind of getting it handed to you and they’re getting you out pretty quick and you find a way to put together an inning where you scored 10 runs in an inning, that’s hard to do,” Van Horn said.

Van Horn didn’t see any worry from his team.

“Well, I don’t think there was panic in the dugout,” Van Horn said. “ I think that we feel like this team can score. We didn’t feel like we could get them all in one inning, but we still had six at-bats. We thought we were going to score. We just didn’t think we would score that many.”

The Razorback also got some help from the visitors.
 
“Like I told the team, you have to have a few things go your way,” Van Horn said. “Hit the ball where they’re not, you got to have a walk or two, maybe an error mixed in there. We just did a great job of laying off some borderline pitches. We took our walks. We got our hits.

“…Just trying to get the next guy to the plate. That’s what you’re trying to do when you’re losing like that. You’re not just sitting on a dead-red pitch, you’ve got to have a plan, and I thought they did an incredible job.”

Woodard knew his team could have gotten out of Arkansas’ big inning several times during it.

Charlotte starting pitcher Mike Szturma, who had only allowed two hits through three innings – one a solo home run by Charles Davalan – then walked Brent Iredale and Kuhio Aloy and the big inning was set in motion.

“It just felt like in that fourth inning that the solo home run, no big deal, but then we followed it up with two walks and that’s just the kind of thing, when you are playing a team as good as Arkansas, you just can’t do that,” Woodard said.

“So we made a (pitching) change there and I think we got a punch out there to get that out, but then it was we just kind of left some pitches up and went to Joel Sharver, who has been really good for us and thought he could get a ground ball and get one of the outs.

“Then we throw the ball into the runner at second, which if we get that double play right there and you come back in, it changes the entire game.

“Again, (the throw) not a big deal, or at least shouldn’t have been, but when you follow it up with a walk after that and a good line up is going to go. I mean they went hit, hit by pitch, double, single, ground ball, hit by pitch, ground ball.

“It’s just the constant combination of misplays. You can’t give Arkansas four, five, six outs and that many free bases anyways.”

After Gaeckle exited, the Razorbacks got two scoreless innings from Dylan Carter (3-0), before Cody Gunderson’s sixth-inning solo homer off Arkansas reliever Colin Fisher cut the 49ers’ deficit to 11-10.

Coil pitched a pair of scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth frames before Christian Foutch pitched around two hit batters in the ninth to get his second save for the season.

“We knew that Arkansas’ bull pen was going to be really good and they showed that tonight,” Woodard said. “Fortunately we just gave them one (run) too many. It was like first team to 11 wins and that was them tonight.”

Van Horn also gave Charlotte hitters credit for attacking Gaeckle.

“They put together a great first inning,” Van Horn said. “I mean, it’s like we couldn’t get that third out. Gaeckle made some mistakes, man. He hung a couple breaking balls and one of them left the park, one of them hit the wall, a couple of base hits and give them credit. They came out on fire. They had a plan and they did it.

“…But more than anything, he was just up. He’s up in the zone. He wasn’t spotting his pitches and he made a couple of good pitches early, and then he’d leave something in the zone and they’d hammer it. If you made a mistake early, they hit it. We need to get him on track.

“…I just think he didn’t have a good day. He didn’t have a great day last weekend. Opening weekend, it was pretty good, but It was cold. He’ll get another start before we open conference and hopefully it’ll be a good one.”

Arkansas and Charlotte will meet again Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at noon.

Photo by John D. James