No. 11 Arkansas readies for clash with No. 1 Texas

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – While some of his players might not know about the passion of the Arkansas-Texas rivalry from days gone by, Razorback head baseball coach Dave Van Horn lived it.

“I was here as a player and as a grad assistant when it was pretty hot and heavy and it was fun,” Van Horn said. “ It just brought a little extra excitement.

“…You know they’re not considered one of our rival schools that we play every year. We’ve got Missouri and Ole Miss for that, in baseball anyway. But I’m sure that our fans are going to see it as a huge rivalry.”

It doesn’t hurt that Texas (38-5, 19-2) is a consensus No. 1 in the college polls as they arrive in Fayetteville this weekend to play No. 11 Arkansas (xx-xx, 14-7).

They two teams will clash Thursday at 6 p.m on ESPN 2, Friday at 7 on the SEC Network and Saturday at 2 p.m. on SEC Network +.

“Texas is having a great year and that throws a little fuel on the fire so to speak, Van Horn said. “We’ve been struggling a little bit, battling injuries and a few other things.

“But I’m sure that our players that are on the team now will kind of get a feel for what’s up when the games start and they see how our fans probably react to having the Longhorns in town again.”

Arkansas was the consensus No. 1 team and leading the SEC on April 7, but the Razorbacks have since lost six of their last nine league games.

During that time, the Longhorns have opened a five-game lead on Arkansas and Tennessee.

“Just want to play well and find a way to win a couple games, win the series,” Van Horn said. “Obviously you’d like to win them all. You gotta win the first one first tomorrow. It was good being around the guys yesterday. The mood was good. Everybody’s upbeat. We know how hard it is and we know how close we were. We just didn’t take care of some things. We’re just fighting to get back on track a little bit.”

Texas is riding a 10-game winning streak after downing Prairie View 11-2 on Tuesday night.

“They’ve won a lot of close games and they’ve done a great job,” Van Horn said. “They’ve pitched extremely well in league play. Their team ERA in league is really good. And overall. I mean it’s just over 3.00, I think.

“…The bats are good. They’ve just done a tremendous job of finishing games.

“And they’ve got a freshman closer (Dylan Vilontas), a lefty, who’s 6 foot 6 who’s been really good. They don’t make too many mistakes. They’ve won at home big time. They’ve won just enough on the road.”

Van Horn admits to being surprised by Texas’ lead.

“You know the league is doing what I thought the league would do except for Texas. I thought the league would pound each other a little bit. Texas has found a way to get those 2 out of 3s and sweep some weekend series and that’s why they have pulled away.”

Van Horn confirmed that freshman pitcher Carson Wiggins will not pitch again this season after suffering an elbow injury last weekend at Florida.

Van Horn said the news was “positive” after the first MRI on the elbow.

“I mean, that (positive) means it’s not torn as of now,” Van Horn said.” It might be today when we do the dye test. It doesn’t mean that he’s going to pitch again this year even if it’s not.

“It just means if there’s a strain, you let it heal, you rehab and pitch when he’s ready. If there’s a nerve issue or something jumped out, you just deal with it.

“So we don’t know anything yet. We just know that the first MRI came in positive, it didn’t show a tear.”

Van Horn noted that Arkansas will start Zach Root (5-3, 4.50 ERA) on the mound Thursday, Gage Wood (0-0, 4.35) on Friday with Saturday to be determined as the series goes along.

In his second appearance after a shoulder impingement injury, Wood pitched three scoreless innings while allowing one hit and fanning five of the 10 Florida batters last weekend.

“Yeah, he threw really good last weekend,” Van Horn said. “And he didn’t throw a couple of his pitches. He didn’t throw his cutter. It was fastball an curve for the most part.

“Again it was two to three innings and I guess he went three. You know he got up in the low 40s and we were going to give him 35 to 45. I think we were thinking 40 max and he threw 42, 43 pitches.

“But he pounded the strike zone with some big velocity and he threw the breaking ball for a strike. He just sliced right through their order – the nine hitters or whatever he saw there. I think they got one baserunner on.”

Wood felt fine physically after the outing.

“And the real positive thing was the next day he didn’t have any soreness, any complaints,” Van Horn said. “I am sure he gained a lot of confidence, not only in his pitching ability, but that he was healed. The mind was telling him, ‘hey I’m fine.’

“So if we an get him to where to whatever we can – he can give us x amount of pitches this weekend, more next week against LSU and then maybe by the time we play the last series against Tennessee, he will have his pitch count up there more and then we can let him go after that.

“That could really help us out if the all plays out. You are always holding your breath, but after the way he got through this weekend, we are feeling pretty good about that.”

Arkansas could see injured pitcher Hunter Dietz make his first appearance on the mound this season during the Texas series per Van Horn.

“Well we threw him yesterday live, he threw good,” Van Horn said. “ It was good to see. Best he’s thrown since he’s been hurt, so he’s definitely available. But then again, pitching in a real game and who knows how long, so if we get him in there, obviously we hope it goes good.

“If it doesn’t, at least he got the experience and hopefully it gets better next week and the week after and then he’ll be ready to go.”

Van Horn know that is a lot to like about Texas, but admits its about Arkansas controlling what it can that’s the biggest factor.

“We are still dissected it, but they have a good mix of left and right handed hitter and they can run a little bit this year, maybe more than we thought they would,” Van Horn said. “We are just trying to pick up what they do.

“They take quite a few pitches, but if they get ahead in the count, they are going top hit the ball over your head and maybe out of the park.

“They are dangerous and they feed off each other – good pitching, offense exciting and solid defense.

“But l’ll be honest with you…We just worry about us. That’s kind of our thing right now. It’s like whatever. They’re good. We know they are good.

“We know LSU is good, we know Tennessee is good, Florida, Georgia. We need to take care of what we can control and if we do, we will be in every game.

“Some times we get carried away worrying about the other team, you can blow the guys’ minds a little bit. So we are just trying to keep it simple, use the players we have available to help us win the series.”

Photo by John D. James