Razorbacks fall to Vandy, but back into share of SEC title

Arkansas will take a share of the SEC title, even if they backed into it after an 8-7 loss at Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon that ended the regular season with a thurd.

LSU’s loss at Georgia earlier on Saturday guaranteed at least a share of the title, but Razorbacks coach Dave Van Horn was probably trying to win it outright. They’ll take the title, though, not that it particularly means a whole lot outside of the bragging rights in some historical stats.

It leaves the Hogs with a 39-15 overall record (20-10 in the SEC). Now they have the SEC Tournament next week in Hoover, Ala., and the Hogs will be the No. 2 seed in that tournament. We won’t find out about NCAA seedings until next MOnday after the conference tournaments, but there likely will be NCAA games as far as the Hogs play until they go to Omaha, if they win the regional and Super Regional.

Hunter Hollan started on the mound for the Hogs and he wasn’t as sharp, giving up eight hits in 2.2 innings and giving up four earned runs. Will McEntire then came on and didn’t allow any runs, giving up just a solo hit before turning it over deeper in the bullpen, when the trail to the bullpen heated up.

Parker Coil worked .1 of an inning and gave up three earned runs on three hits and struggled mightily before giving way to Gage Wood, who was a little more effective than Saturday night working .2 of an inning and not yielding any runs

The Hogs got things rolling in the second with Caleb Cali drawing a one-out walk, moving to second on Brady Slaven’s single and scoring when Peyton Holt hit a grounder to short that was thrown into right field. Slavens scored on a sacrifice fly by Harold Coll to right field for a 2-0 lead.

Vanderbilt took the lead in the bottom of the second inning scoring quickly and Tony LaNeve added a two-run homer for a 3-2 lead.

The Hogs went down quietly in the third and fourth innings, but the Commodores added another run in the bottom of the fourth.

Finally (at least for fans), they got things rolling in the fifth. Tavian Josenberger led off with a single, stole second and Kendall Digg’s liner up the middle got him home. Then Diggs scored when Cali hit a grounder the Commodores tried to field, but he scored after getting moved over to third on a double off the wall by Jared Wegner. That made it 4-2 and they added another run on a single by Slavens and Holt got him home on another single and a 6-4 lead.

That lead disappeared when the Razorbacks’ pitching circus started again in the seventh inning as the Commodores scored three runs to take the lead back, 7-6. The Hogs used Parker Coil and Gage Wood trying to hang on.

The Hogs leave a couple of baserunners in the eighth after Harold Coll led off getting hit by a pitch and Ben McLaughlin drew walks but they couldn’t advance as the bats couldn’t do anything with Vandy’s pitching. The Commodores couldn’t do anything with the bat against Cody Adcock, who settled things down on the mound for the Hogs.

It ended after Cali’s one-out single was followed by a double-play ground ball from Slavens.