San Jose State relishing two-game shot at No. 1 Arkansas

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – San Jose State head baseball coach Brad Sanfillipo and his team are relishing their chance to play at No. 1 Arkansas the next two days.

The top-ranked Razorbacks (27-3, 11-1 in SEC play) will battle the visiting Spartans (12-18, 7-8) Tuesday night at 6 p.m. and Wednesday afternoon at 3 at Baum Walker-Stadium.

“Hey, you are getting to play the number one team in the country in a great college baseball environment,” Sanfillippo said. “So we are very much looking forward to playing college baseball at the highest level. That’s what it is all about.

“We have got to be a good team on the road if want to do the things we anted to do on the road this season. You have got to play quality people if you want to do the things we want to do. This will be a great test for us and obviously a big challenge to do to Fayetteville.”

Ben Bybee (1-0, 0.00 ERA) is set to be the starting pitcher for Arkansas on Tuesday night and Colin Fisher (5-1, 2.25) Wednesday while  the visitors will open with  Keaton Chase (1-0, 8.69) in the first game and have not announced a starter for the finale as of yet.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn, whose team hosts a two-game midweek set with visiting Texas Tech next week, has been impressed with how his team has won each of its four non-weekend games so far.

“Some teams maybe start to feel like, ‘man. I wish we didn’t have a game this week.’ Or, ‘we could use a little rest,” Van Horn said. “But we don’t feel that way here. We look forward to them because there’s always three or four offensive guys that need to hit. Some of the guys that start all the time, they need to get it going a little bit. Catch up, whatever. Then on the mound, there’s guys that need to get out there and pitch.

We’re definitely going to be challenged with the midweeks coming up in April. We’ve got two…Tuesday and Wednesday, then we travel (to face Alabama). Then we come back and the next week after that we play two more in midweeks and then at the end of the month we have two midweek games. 

“So, there’s going to be some five-game weeks where we’re going to use a lot of pitching, lot of guys are going to get to play. You’re going to find out a little bit about your depth, so the midweek games are going to be huge for development. Obviously you want to win as many as you can, but guys need to get in there and show us what they can do.”

San Jose State, which finished 31-27 last season and played in the NCAA Tournament Stanford Regional, has won its last four games, including a three-game sweep of visiting San Diego State – 17-3, 17-3 and 7-4 last weekend.

“If you want to play meaningful games at the end of the year, you are going to play in tough environments,” Sanfillippo said. “If you can get to the Mountain West tournament, if you can win the Mountain West tournament, you are going to go on the road and play in a tough environment against a really quality team…You have got to get comfortable in tough environments against good people and this will be a test.”

San Jose State, which had lost five straight and seven of eight before turning things around last weekend, traveled to play Texas last season.

The Spartans downed the Longhorns 6-4 on May 12 in the opener a three-game series before Texas routed them 24-3 and 18-6 the next two games.

“Last year I thought Austin, Texas, was a really good test for us playing historic program like the Texas Longhorns on the road,” Sanfilippo said. “I think that was a good challenge for us. I think this is a good challenge for us. 

“Although they are the number one team in the country and extremely talented, one of the teams picked to go to Omaha, it really is just about us showing up and competing and playing baseball the best that we can. That’s all we can control, but excited to experience baseball at that level.”

Photo by John D. James