Kansas State edges Arkansas 3-2 despite Aloy brothers homering in same inning

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

Except for one inning, Kansas State’s pitching handcuffed Arkansas’ offense on Friday night and that was good enough for a win in Arlington, Texas.

Micah Dean scored a run, drove in the game-winning one and also threw out the potential tying one as the Wildcats down the No. 5 Razorbacks 3-2 at Globe Life Field.

Kansas State starting pitcher Jacob Frost (1-0) tossed five scoreless innings before giving up sixth-inning solo home runs to brothers Wehiwa Aloy and Kuhio Aloy to tie it 2-2.

Blake Dean took over on the mound for the Wildcats (2-4) at that point and ended up closing out the game with Micah Dean’s RBI single in the seventh being the eventual game winner.

It came off of reliever Tate McGuire, who had closed out the sixth for Arkansas (4-1), which was playing the first of three games this weekend in the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series.

“Just a lot of frustration over here today,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “We hit the two homers and you think things are gong to go our way and we let them back into it the next inning.

“But we had and our opportunities and we just didn’t get it done.”

Micah Dean threw out Arkansas’ Charles Davalan at third base trying to advance on Wehiwa Aloy’s two-out single in the eighth.

Brent Iredale – hitting .500 and with a double earlier in the game – would have been the plate with two on and two out.

“He should have stayed at second,” Van Horn said. “The play was in front of him. It didn’t look like he was going full speed, like he was going 100 percent right away. He kept looking for help.

“If the play is in front of you, you have got to shut it down. And the bottom line is you don’t make the third out at third base, especially when you have your hottest hitter coming up.

“It doesn’t look real. That is not what we should have done.”

Kendall Diggs led off the bottom of the ninth with a single, but Dean stranded him to hand the Wildcats the win.

Kanas State out it Arkansas 8-7 in the contest and had single runs in the third and fourth innings against Razorback starter Gabe Gaeckle.

Gaeckle (0-1) allowed two runs on five hits, walked four and fanned two while throwing 99 pitches, 56 for strikes in his 5 2/3 inning stint.

“Gabe didn’t have his stuff tonight,” Van Horn said. “We actually were going to take him out after five. He was getting to his pitch limit, but he really wanted to go back out there in the sixth because the fifth was his best.

“He was feeling better and was actually commanding the ball better when he got up there a little bit. But he wasn’t able to locate the heater where he wanted it and left some breaking balls over the plate.

“But I’ve got to give him credit. We were actually tied when he came out and down two runs heading to the bottom of the sixth and we tied it up.

“We needed to take care of some opportunities offensively there and didn’t.”

Parker Coil and Will MCEntire each pitched a scoreless inning for Arkansas to keep the Raorabxcks in it.

Frost went 5 1/3 for Kansas State, allowing two runs on four hits, waking a pair, fanning six and throwing 78 pitches – 50 of which were strikes.

“I thought he just located that heater for the most part, mixed in a few breaking balls and the brought his fast ball into our right handers after he went away and away,” Van Horn said.


Arkansas returns to action Saturday night at 6 p.m. against No. 22 TCU (5-0), which downed previously unbeaten Michigan 10-4 earlier on Friday.

Photo courtesy of Razorback Communications