Hogs down LSU 7-4 to avoid sweep, head home to face Vols

No. 7 Arkansas lost the series to No. 3 LSU, but did avoid the sweep with a 7-4 win on Sunday while only a home series remains with Tennessee beginning Thursday night.

Arkansas (41-11, 18-9) regained sole possession of second place in the SEC with the win over LSU (40-12, 17-10). It was a near four-hour game that saw 14 pitchers take the mound, LSU Coach Jay Johnson ejected for arguing balls and strikes and the game go down to the final pitch. Parker Coil got LSU catcher Luis Hernandez to line out to Wehiwa Aloy at shortstop to end the game while stranding two runners. Dave Van Horn was pleased to avoid the sweep and get the win now heading home.

“Yeah, another four-hour game on a Sunday,” Van Horn said. “It was a really good win for our team, obviously, after that rough game yesterday when nothing went right. We didn’t play well. We didn’t pitch or hit well. ….he goes over the opening game a little … When you look back on it, we should’ve won game 1, yesterday’s game happened, today’s game was a real kind of back-and-forth type game. We just pitched extremely well, got out of a couple of jams. Got a couple of big hits. Put together that four-run inning after being down two and then just pitched our way to the end.

“That was big scoring there in the top of the ninth after they cut the lead to one there in the bottom of the eighth. This is a tough place to win and to hold onto games and I was proud of the team for bouncing back.”

The Arkansas bullpen was good using five pitchers after starter Landon Beidelschies only lasted two innings. Dylan Carter (6-0) was the second Arkansas pitcher to the mound and got the win. He worked two innings striking out a pair, walking one and allowing two hits. In seven innings, the Hogs bullpen only allowed one run. ‘

“Yeah, he got us six outs,” Van Horn said of Carter. “That’s what we were hoping. We were hoping that Landon Beidelschies would give us at least three. He only gave us two. We had it scripted out a little bit. We knew we had seven guys available for today, counting the starter. We ended up using six guys counting the starter. Yeah, it was big. He didn’t have his best stuff, but he kinda just got them out. Couple of big punch outs, but he just let them hit it a few times, and then we handed it off to Christian (Foutch).”

LSU took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second on solo home runs by Hernandez and Steven Milam off Beidelschies. But the Hogs answered that with four in the top of the third inning.

Justin Thomas Jr. led off the bottom of third with a double. A ground out moved him to third where he scored on a Wehiwa Aloy sacrifice fly. Carson Boles then walked with two outs. Kuhio Aloy singled to left. Ryder Helfrick then laced a double down the left field line to plate Boles. Cam Kozeal then singled to center field to get both Kuhio Aloy and Helfrick home for a 4-2 advantage. Van Horn was pleased to see the Hogs get some runners in after stranding two in the third.

“Well, it was huge because things weren’t going our way,” Van Horn said. “They weren’t going our way the night before. Rough day, and then they go out and score two. We have a runner at third base, one out, and Wehiwa Aloy’s at-bat, I think he was 0-2. We’re thinking, please put the bat on the ball. We’ve got to score on here at a minimum, and then he actually hits a really good ball. Line drive to right field, sac fly, and we still had a runner on at I think second, and then we end up scoring three more runs. Just missed a three-run homer. Got a double there and then a big two-out hit I think by Cam, and all of a sudden we’re up 4-2. Then we just kind of held on. It was 4-3, and then we punched one in, in the fifth. They’ve got some really good arms. I mean, everybody they threw at us that was right-handed was 95-100, and even the lefties were pretty good, as well. We did a good job.”

LSU got three singles in the bottom of the third, the first coming against Beidelschies. They managed to get a run to pull within 4-3 after three innings.

The Hogs got back on the scoreboard in the top of the fifth when Helfrick walked to lead off. He went to second on a ground out by Kozeal. He moved to third when Brent Iredale singled. Helfrick came in to score on a Reese Robinett ground out giving Arkansas a 5-3 lead.

LSU scored a solo run in the bottom of the eighth to get within 5-4 of the Razorbacks. However, disaster struck in the top of the ninth for LSU. Four of the first five hitters walked. The only hit in that series was Robinett hitting an RBI single to right field. The Hogs had scored a run one hitter earlier when Iredale walked with the bases loaded.

Johnson was tossed in the top of the eighth for arguing balls and strikes, but Arkansas stranded Thomas at third base and couldn’t capitalize on it.

LSU used eight pitchers with starter Cason Evans (3-1) taking the loss. Evans pitched 3.2 innings, allowing seven hits, four runs, walking three and fanning four.

Parker Coil pitched for the first time in several weeks as he returned from an injury. Coil retired the only two hitters he faced to earn the save which was his first of the season. Christian Foutch, Cole Gibler and Aiden Jimenez were the other Arkansas pitchers.

“I mean typical Coil,” Van Horn said. “He comes in and throws six pitches and it’s six strikes. The last ball was an 0-2 pitch and he got it in on the hitter a little bit. He only hit it like 75 mph. It looked like a line drive but it wasn’t hit super hard. I’m just glad it went right at him. They already got a bloop base hit the inning before that helped them score a run. But yeah, I thought he did a great job. His bullpens have been really good is what I’ve been told by Coach (Matt) Hobbs. We just felt like that was the right move. And we knew they were going to pinch hit, bringing in a right-hander but he gets righties out as well.”

Both teams ended the game with 10 hits while the Razorbacks stranded 12 runners and LSU 11. Each team committed one error. The first pitch Thursday will be at 7 p.m. and televised on ESPN2. Friday night’s game starts at 6:30 p.m. and can be streamed on the SEC Network+. Saturday’s game will begin at 2 p.m. and will be televised on the SEC Network.

Tennessee (39-12, 15-11) lost two of three against Vanderbilt this weekend. The Vols have now lost five of its last six SEC series while the Razorbacks have dropped four of the last five. The Hogs are 30-3 at Baum-Walker Stadium.