HawgBeat - No. 1 Arkansas secures series sweep over No. 8 LSU
The No. 1 Razorbacks earned the 7-5 win over the No. 8 Tigers to secure the series sweep over LSU.
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FAYETTEVILLE — The No. 1 Arkansas Razorbacks (23-3, 8-1 SEC) secured the series sweep over the No. 8 LSU Tigers (20-8, 2-7 SEC) with a 7-5 win in Game 3 on Saturday afternoon in front of nearly nearly 11,000 fans at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Arkansas had a pair of three-run innings at the plate in the bottom of the fourth and sixth, and it also had a pair of big swings that left the park from shortstop Wehiwa Aloy and second baseman Peyton Stovall.
Left fielder Will Edmunson had a 3-3 day a the plate with a double for the Hogs, plus Stovall and centerfielder Ty Wilmsmeyer had three RBIs each. Arkansas had nine hits in the game and it was 6-19 at the plate with runners on base and 3-11 with runners in scoring position.
"I thought we did a really good job offensively today," head coach Dave Van Horn said. "Nine or 10 hits a game for three days in a row off some really good arms and different looks. We also hit a lot of balls hard. Both teams did. I just felt like our at-bats were better.
"We fought. I was really proud of our offense today, because we’re down one, we’re tied. We’re down 4-1, it’s looking pretty good for them, and then bang, with two outs I think we had maybe a walk, and then four hits in a row or whatever it was. It’s hard to get two hits in a row, and three is rare. But four is big time. The next thing you know, we had the lead."
After being moved back one day to the third game of the series, Arkansas starter Brady Tygart had more trouble Saturday than he has all year. The junior right-hander got through just four innings on 68 pitches, and he gave up four earned runs on five hits while striking out three and walking none.
"He had a couple pitches that if he could get them back, he would," Van Horn said. "Two of them left the park. He was ahead in the count. He just didn’t locate it where he wanted it. He threw it for a strike but it was kind of more in the middle of the plate. Those are things that, he cleans that up, he stays in the game for a while."
Following three innings of one-run relief ball from veteran right-hander Koty Frank, Van Horn brought highly-touted freshman left-hander Hunter Dietz in for his collegiate debut after he missed the start of the year while recovering from a minor offseason procedure for a stress fracture.
While Dietz didn't get out of the inning, he gained valuable experience on the mound. Plus, the Hogs were able to turn to the always-reliable Will McEntire to close things down even though his name wasn't even on the board to pitch Saturday.
"I didn’t write his name on the board, I didn’t write it on the lineup card," Van Horn said. "And I always post the lineup card by the locker room. When I went and got it right before we went out to stretch, his name just appeared on there. Because I guess he wrote it on there.
"I said something to (Pitching coach Matt) Hobbs, and he said, ‘Yeah, he wrote it on there.’ We didn’t want him doing much, and I guess he threw 24 pitches, and that was all he needed to throw right there. Glad it worked out."
Both starters were tagged with solo homers in the first inning, as LSU slugger Tommy White led the game off with a home run to right and Arkansas' Wehiwa Aloy tied it with a 380-foot bomb — his sixth of the season — to left field in the bottom half.
Tygart worked the game's first 1-2-3 frame in the top of the second, and the Hogs seemed to be in good position in the bottom half by putting the first two batters on base. Following a mound visit, LSU starter Gage Jump picked up three outs over the next two batters he faced to get out of trouble.
After allowing the first two batters he faced in the top of the third inning to reach base, Tygart quickly picked up two outs courtesy of a 6-4-3 double play. Unfortunately for the right-hander from Hernando, Mississippi, LSU's Ashton Larson somehow managed to sneak a two-run homer into the right field bullpen to give the Tigers a 3-1 lead.
LSU's third homer of the game was demolished 414 feet to left by centerfielder Mac Bingham to give the Tigers a 4-1 advantage in the top half of the fourth.
Arkansas' hitters finally responded with three runs on back-to-back swings from Wilmsmeyer (two-RBI single) and Stovall (RBI single) to tie the game at 4-4 after four innings.
Arkansas quickly went to the bullpen in the top of the fifth, as right-hander Koty Frank relieved Tygart after a leadoff single by the Tigers. It took the sixth-year veteran just four pitches to get three outs, as he picked up a three-pitch strikeout and a 5-4-3 double play ended the inning on the very next pitch.
Left-handed reliever Nate Ackenhausen, who took over with two outs in the bottom of the fourth, worked a scoreless bottom of the fifth inning for the Tigers. Frank responded by going three up, three down in the top half of the sixth.
The Razorbacks took their first lead of the game when Edmunson scored on an RBI fielder's choice from Wilmsmeyer, who was brought around after Stovall sent the very next pitch 379 feet to right field for a two-run homer to make it 7-4.
"He’s hitting (.364), and he’s doing it all against the league," Van Horn said. "He didn’t get any of them cookie games when the wind’s blowing out 30 mph and the wind’s out of the north, and we’re playing somebody that’s run out of pitching and we’re scoring 10, 12, 15 runs. He pretty much has been doing it against the SEC."
Frank was tagged for a run via another 400-plus foot homer off Bingham's bat in the top of the seventh that made the LSU deficit two runs with just six more outs to work with. LSU reliever Gavin Guidry handled the Hogs in the bottom of the seventh inning.
In a somewhat surprising moving, Van Horn turned let Dietz make his collegiate debut on the mound to begin the top of the eighth. The freshman picked up two outs, but also loaded the bases for Bingham. The Hogs didn't take any chances and brought in McEntire, who delivered a big strikeout.
"I thought he threw the ball pretty good, honestly," Van Horn said of Dietz's outing. "I don’t know what his velocity was, 92-93, but there’s a lot more in there and there will be more coming. If we waited not to throw him this weekend, or we didn’t get him in today, and we throw him on Tuesday, then we probably won’t have him for the weekend. So we had to get him in today."
After Arkansas went scoreless in the bottom half of the eight, "Iron Man" Will McEntire returned to the mound in the top of the ninth and avoided too much late-game drama courtesy of White lining into a 5-4 double play that ended things.
Up next, the Razorbacks will host in-state foe Arkansas State at 6 p.m. CT Tuesday at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville. The game will be streamed live on SEC Network+.
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