Texas A&M extends winning streak to eight with 7-4 victory over Arkansas in series opener

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – The Texas A&M baseball team’s revival tour made its way to Arkansas’ Baum-Walker Stadium on Thursday night and not much changed.’FAYETTEVILLE – The Texas A&M baseball team’s revival tour made its way to Arkansas’ Baum-Walker Stadium on Thursday night and not much changed.

Jace LaViolette homered, scored three runs and drove in pair and Weston Moss pitched five scoreless innings of relief as the Aggies pushed their winning streak to eight with a 7-4 win over No. 2 Arkansas (33-6, 12-4).

Texas A&M (22-15, 7-9), the nation’s consensus No. 1 preseason team after a national runner-up finish last season, opened its SEC slate 1-9 and fell completely out of the rankings.

But the Aggies have won their last six league games and a pair of non-conference games.

Texas A&M first-year head coach Michael Earley was obviously pleased to take the opener of a three-game series and continue his team’s turn around.

“Always good to get a win in SEC, especially in game one at what is just an extremely, extremely tough place to play,” Earley said. “I think it is just a really, really good team with unbelievable coaches. So any time you can get a win off a team like this, it is really good.”

It was also the third straight SEC loss for the Razorbacks – after two 7-6 defeats at Georgia – and only their second loss at home all season.

No. 1 Texas beat Auburn 3-2 on Thursday night to open up a two-game lead on Arkansas in the SEC standings.

Arkansas and Texas A&M have a quick turnaround as they are scheduled to play a pair of nine-inning games beginning Friday at 2 p.m.


Dylan Carter, who did banner work out of the Arkansas bullpen with three scoreless innings of one-hit relief, is sure his team will bounce back.

“Losing sucks,” Carter saud. “Especially last weekend, the way we lost (two 7-6 games to Georgia), it really sucked. This league, the SEC, is really good. Every team is really good.

“A&M, give them credit, they got us tonight. And I think tomorrow we’re gonna come out, we’re gonna put our heads down and we’re just gonna go to work, we’re gonna play our style of ball, we’re gonna throw strikes, we’re gonna hit the baseball and we’re gonna try to win two.”

Carter kept the Texas A&M bats quiet to give his team a chance to rally from its 6-4 deficit in before LaViolette’s solo homer in the ninth capped the scoring off Christian Foutch.

“I thought Carter came in and did a great job,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “Really gave us an opportunity, you know, to score and get back in the game and we just never did. Give credit to their pitchers. I mean, (starter Ryan) Prager was good, but Weston Moss is their guy. They took a shot there in the fifth and brought him in.

“We had our shot to get to him and we couldn’t quite get that big hit. We had two innings against him where we had a couple guys on where we needed one more hit to at least score, and we couldn’t get it. That’s kind of the way I would assess. We didn’t get the hit when we needed it, and they did.”

The Razorbacks had rallied to tie game 4-4 on Wehiwa Aloy’s two-run homer in the third, but could not muster any thing after that against Moss.

Moss (5-2) got the win while pitching five innings while allowing just three hits, walking one and fanning five.

He took over for Prager, who gave up Wehiwa Aloy’s two-run homer in the third inning to tie it 4-4, after the starter allowed four runs on seven hits.

“Moss has been great for us out of the pen all year and we had good at bats,” Earley said. “Kept bringing guys to the plate, put balls in play when we needed to put them in play. I was pleased with our effort and our process tonight.”

Earley noted it was an easy choice to make the pitching switch as Prager was about to face the top of the Arkansas order a third time.

“It was a pretty easy decision just because of how he has been for us and has been super reliable for us and had a ton of big moments,” Earley said. “So with that loaded line up they’ve got, we wanted to pit our best arm out of the pen in there and he did an outstanding job.”

Moss faced Wehiwa Aloy as the tying run in the fifth and the go-ahead one in the seventh and fanned him both times.

He also got Charles Davalan to ground out as the tying run in the ninth after Ryder Helfrick and pinch hitter Kendall Diggs both singled to give the Razorbacks one last chance.

Both teams had nine hits.

Texas A&M got to Arkansas starting pitcher Zach Root (5-2) for a run on Caden Sorrell’s RBI single in the first.

The Razorbacks answered with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the frame as Kuhio Aloy’s RBI double and Cam Kozeal’s run-scoring groundout put the hosts up 2-1.


But the Aggies responded immediately as LaViolette added a run-scoring fielder’s choice and Wyatt Henseler’s two-run double off Root surged the visitors ahead 4-2.

“Average at best, Van Horn said of Root’s outing. “You know, he walked a couple guys that really hurt. They fought him a little bit, but he just couldn’t, he didn’t put them away a couple of times and they got to a full count, think the ball (Henseler) hit the middle of the wall out there with two outs. That was a tough one, just about to get out of that and then couldn’t finish him off.”

Laviolette’s ninth-inning homer eased some tension.

“Any time you can extend on a good team that plays really well at home, it gives you – I don’t want to call it breathing room – but just an extra run.

“It came up big, the tying run ended up coming to the plate. That doesn’t feel good, but it is definitely better than the winning run.

“You knew, with a team like this, it ain’t going to be easy in ninth. The hardest outs in baseball, with this line up and how these guys grind. There are really, really impressive hitters on this team so that extra insurance run was huge.”

Photo courtesy of Razorbacks Communications