HawgBeat - What Dave Van Horn said after Arkansas' loss to Kentucky
What Arkansas' Dave Van Horn had to say about Thursday's loss to Kentucky at the SEC Tournament.
arkansas.rivals.com
HOOVER, Ala. — The Arkansas Razorbacks are going back to Fayetteville following a 9-6 loss to Kentucky on Thursday at the SEC Tournament.
Junior Hagen Smith, the SEC Pitcher of the Year, started the game and threw just two innings as he was on a pitch count. Four other pitchers threw in the game for the Razorbacks, all of which have pitched in a starting role this year.
Arkansas totaled nine hits in the game compared to Kentucky's 10, and outfielder Peyton Holt had his first multi-home run game as a Hog with a pair of longballs. Third baseman Jared Sprague-Lott added a pair of knocks, including a 416-foot home run in the ninth inning.
Here's a box score, plus what Van Horn had to say about his team's loss, which set Arkansas back to a Thursday losers' bracket matchup with 3-seed Kentucky at 9:30 a.m. CT on SEC Network.
Box Score
Thoughts on offensive production recently?
With Arkansas' pitching staff not limiting opponents as much as they were earlier in the year, the offense is struggling to pick up the slack in order to stack up wins. Arkansas did combine to score 11 runs in two games at the SEC Tournament, but South Carolina and Kentucky scored 15 combined runs on the Hogs.
"Yeah, it was a little bit up and down. We left a lot of runners on base in the last two days. Really the biggest hit we got was that three-run homer. We got, you know, hit here or there or a sac fly yesterday. But today's game was, again -- in our big inning, we needed another hit. We've got to get better. That's what I just told 'em, we got to get more production up and down the lineup.
"It's spotty right now. I think guys are trying too hard, trying to do too much instead of just take what they give you sometimes. What I'm talking about is maybe a couple guys going out of the zone, put themselves in a bad count. We got to flip that, take the pitch, work for the next one. Yeah, we're going to have to swing the bats a lot better when we get to the regional."
How did Thursday's pitching set you up for next weekend?
With the NCAA Tournament regionals coming up next weekend, Arkansas threw five pitchers Thursday who have started a game this year — in order to get them some live innigns. Hagen Smith, Gage Wood, Will McEntire, Brady Tygart and Mason Molina all appeared in that order.
"I thought Molina threw really well the last two outings," Van Horn said. "I thought Tygart was really good for an inning. Had a hitter down 0-2 and just made a really big mistake and he unloaded on it."
The mistake Van Horn referred to was a lazy fielding error by Tygart on the mound, and the run came around to score directly after on a two-run homer for Kentucky.
"Just little careless things like that, you know, ball's hit off the end of the bat, spinning like a top, you don't field it with one hand, you field it with two," Van Horn said. "You don't run away from it. Ball spun right out of his glove. When you're older, you know that. Freshman, younger guy, I mean, it doesn't happen again down the road. But, you know, that inning couldn't happen right there. That was frustrating.
"Other than that, Tygart's first inning, man, he looked really good, breaking ball going, spotting his fastball down, had a little movement, a little sink. And it was good to see McEntire just threw one hitter, but he threw pretty good. So Gage Wood, couple really good hitters, didn't get behind. When you get behind 2-0, second time they see and you got to throw a fastball in there, they jumped on him pretty good. When he was ahead in the count, not a problem. So it's process every day."
What's the message to the team?
Arkansas has now dropped three straight games entering the NCAA Tournament. The Hogs have been on the road since May 15, so it'll be good to get back home to Fayetteville.
"They will get back and rest up just a little bit," Van Horn said. "Message out there was, this is where we wanted to be as far as we know we're going to be in a regional, a really good opportunity to host. It's time to take a step forward. We kind of went backward a couple weeks ago, sideways. We've been up and down. We need to make a move and finish this thing up the right way."
How important is success in the SEC Tournament for the NCAA Tournament?
It's been well-documented that the SEC Tournament probably doesn't mean that much in the grand scheme of things, but it's a good opportunity to build on some success.
"Depends on where you are," Van Horn said. "Depends on your record at the time coming in here, you know, or depending upon how you're playing. If you're not playing very well, you come in here, play really good, you can gain some momentum. Come in here, you got things locked up and you just don't want to get anybody hurt.
"You want to play, obviously, you want to win, you don't like losing, you are used to winning, that's why you're in this position that you're in. Just depends on who you are and where you're at as far as wins and losses and how you're playing. And I wouldn't say that it's not important. It's more important for some teams than it is others, like everybody knows. If you're asking me if we should have a tournament or not, I would say, yeah, we need to have a tournament."
