Arkansas bats go quiet in season-ending loss to SEMO
The Arkansas bats were relatively silent in a season-ending loss to SEMO in the Fayetteville Regional.
FAYETTEVILLE — After a season full of concerns at the plate, it was the Arkansas Razorbacks' offense that could not come through in Sunday's 6-3 season-ending loss to 4-seed Southeast Missouri State in the Fayetteville Regional at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Arkansas scored three runs on six hits Sunday after plating 23 total runs on 29 combined hits in the first two games of the regional. The Hogs hit just 2-for-9 with runners on base and they struck out 10 times as a team in Sunday's loss.
"I was really surprised," Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said postgame. "We didn't think it would go down like this. And I think it's a combination of their pitchers doing a really good job of mixing pitches and locating, and our guys might have been a tick short, maybe just a little bit tired from yesterday's ballgame.
"You can talk about it when you get home at midnight or later and you unwind, take a shower, you unwind, before you know it it it's 1:30, 2:00. We got breakfast at nine. We're having scouting report. Maybe I learned something. Maybe you just let them sleep in till 12:00 and tell them to show up and we'll do it like we did in summer league and just play. But I just felt like we were just slow."
Less than 48 hours removed from scoring three runs on three hits in a 17-9 win Friday against Redhawks' pitcher Collin Wilma, the No. 5 national seed Arkansas Razorbacks had just one baserunner via a walk against the crafty right-hander through four innings Sunday.
That all looked to change on a two-out pitch that Peyton Holt sent 422 feet to left field in the top of the fifth inning that cut the Redhawks' lead to three runs.
The swing sparked some life into the Hogs, and the home crowd, as the next three batters reached via free passes to chase Wilma and bring up catcher Hudson White with bases loaded and two outs. The Redhawks then elected to pull Wilma, who finished with the one earned run allowed on Holt's homer, plus two walks and six strikeouts in 4.2 inning pitched.
"You don’t see too many curveballs in the low to mid 60s, usually the lowest one you’ll see is 70, 71, 72," Van Horn said. "It was a true curveball, the old curveball. Then there’s the slurve, slider, that pitch is really different. Then the kid was throwing it 89-90 miles per hour with some run to the right hand side.
"You kind of try to sit on that thing a little bit, you try to guess and then he throws the fastball so you can’t swing. If you’re guessing fastball and he throws the curveball, you can still get a swing or two out of it and he did. We lined out to left field, we were running a runner on a play with two outs, we lined out to center."
In his fifth season as a native of Tinley Park, Illinois, Wilma received some high praise from SEMO head coach Andy Sawyers postgame.
"I’ve been around this young man for five years," Sawyers said. "That’s the absolute best he’s ever thrown. Certainly for a school like SEMO to come to one of the Taj Mahals of college baseball and to win a game like that in an elimination setting, it’s going to require some heroics. And I thought Collin’s outing today was heroic."
SEMO then turned from Wilma, who was making his fifth start of the year, to senior left-hander Logan Katen, who also pitched in Friday's matchup. Katen gave up one earned run on three hits and failed to record an out in the eight-run defeat against the Hogs.
As the Razorback faithful rose to their feet and a low roar of claps grew, Katen's pitch took the air right out of Baum-Walker Stadium when White hit a slow roller to second base for a routine groundout that left the bases loaded.
Third baseman Jared Sprague-Lott worked a full count before grounding out to leadoff the sixth, and then first baseman Ben McLaughlin singled to left to put one on base with one out. Back-to-back outs, one of which was shortstop Wehiwa Aloy climbing the ladder for a strikeout, stranded McLaughlin and sent even more silence over the crowd.
Down four runs and in desperate need of offensive production, the Razorbacks went down in order against Katen in the top of the seventh. Freshman catcher Ryder Helfrick and centerfielder Ty Wilmsmeyer both struck out in the frame.
Again, Arkansas looked to threaten in the top of the eighth, when Peyton Stovall hit a leadoff single and then was advanced to third on a Hudson White double.
After Katen gave the Redhawks 2.1 innings of scoreless ball and three strikeouts, SEMO elected to turn to right-hander Peyton Lawrence for the third day in a row and he picked up three straight outs to strand both runners.
The Razorbacks did get to Lawrence with one out in the top of the ninth, though, as catcher Parker Rowland hit his first home run of the season to cut the deficit to 6-3 and double his season RBI total (2) with one swing. SEMO then turned to the program's all-time saves leader, Kyle Miller, for a low-drama final two outs.
"You’ve got to give them credit," Van Horn said. "They pitched us good. They kept us off balance. A lot of off-speed, especially the first guy, Wilma. He threw against us the other day and he was pretty good, so we’d seen him. But he was better today obviously. He stepped it up. Congratulations to (head coach Andy Sawyers) and those guys getting a chance to move on."
Arkansas finished the 2024 season with a 44-16 overall record and a 34-5 mark at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville.
