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Razorbacks take first-ever in-state matchup with UAPB on Tuesday evening

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas took advantage of five extra-base hits in the second and third innings on Tuesday, scoring nine runs off two home runs and three doubles to take a mid-week contest from Arkansas-Pine Bluff, 10-0, in five-innings.

Hannah McEwen and Haydi Bugarin were the two Hogs to go long in Arkansas’ ninth run-rule victory of the season.

McEwen reached base safely in all three trips to the plate. As a 46-game starter in the leadoff position, McEwen has extended her on-base streak to eight games, finding a way to the bag in 42 of 46 games this season.

She put up the first run for the Hogs in the first inning after reaching on a Lady Lions error and scored on a single up the middle by Katie Warrick.

It was the first of 10 hits for the Hogs.

Arkansas scored four more runs in the second inning to take a 5-0 lead. Sydney Parr and Keely Edward both contributed hits in the home-half of the inning, scoring with help from Bugarin’s home run and a double by McEwen.

The Razorbacks held steady at the plate in the third, as Kayla Green drew a leadoff walk, then reached second on a single by Parr. Carley Haizlip came on as a pinch-runner, then scored on on a double to left field by Bugarin.

Nicole Duncan connected on the 0-2 count and singled to left to score Parr. Bugarin scored on a sacrifice fly by Edwards and the Razorbacks took an eight-run lead in the third inning.

The final two runs of the night came from McEwen’s home run in right center, only her second of the season, but good for her 54th hit of the year, a team best.

Arkansas looked to Autumn Storms and Lauren Graves for support in the circle, as the duo combined for the shutout, recording six strikeouts. Storms recorded her 17th win of the season, starting in her 84th game as a Razorback.

Up next

The Razorbacks close out on their homestand with a three-game conference series against No.9 LSU starting on Thursday at 6 p.m.

The Hogs and Tigers play Friday at 6 p.m. and on Saturday for the series finale at 1 p.m.

Arkansas has only three conference series remaining, with a road series to follow next weekend at Texas A&M and the final home series of the season against Auburn.

Razorbacks’ Matthews’s three wins last week earns SEC weekly award

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Razorbacks’ Matthews’s three wins last week earns SEC weekly award

FAYETTEVILLE — Brooke Matthews earned co-medalist honors and won three matches last week earning Southeastern Conference Golfer of the Week honors Tuesday.

Matthews and the No. 6 Razorbacks are in Birmingham, Alabama, for the 2019 SEC Championship Wednesday-Sunday at the Legends Course at Greystone Country Club.

About the SEC Championship

Dates: Wednesday-Sunday, April 17-21
Course: The Legends Course at Greystone Country Club
Live Scoring: SECSports.com and Golfstat.com
Broadcast: The championship match on Sunday, April 21 will be televised live on SEC Network at 7:30 a.m.

The Razorbacks enter the week as the defending SEC Champions winning the program’s first conference title last year when the format changed to include match play.

Maria Fassi was the co-medalist last year and she, along with seniors Dylan Kim and Kaylee Benton, return to lead Arkansas in their defense of the title this week. Matthews and freshman Ximena Gonzalez round out the lineup for Arkansas.

Matthews earned co-medalist honors shooting a collegiate career-best 4-under 68 in the single round of stroke play at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic last week.

It is her first medalist honor as a Razorback. The Rogers native, turned 1-under and finished strong with three consecutive birdies on her final holes.

Matthews went on to win all three of her matches defeating players from Louisville, Augusta and the host Georgia. She was the only Razorback to win all three matches at the Liz.

NCAA Championships

The University of Arkansas and Blessings Golf Club are the proud hosts of the 2019 NCAA Women’s and Men’s National Championships.

The women’s event begins May 17 and is immediately followed by the men’s championship beginning May 24.

For more information or to volunteer for the event, log on to www.NCAAGolf19.com.

???? Tuesday Halftime Pod

Tye Richardson
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???? Tuesday Halftime Pod

Phil & Tye discuss the pros/cons of playing in-state school, Get Off My Lawn, and more!

Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Tuesday

Tye Richardson
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Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Tuesday

 

John and Tommy Preview Ole Miss, playing in-state schools, and more!

Tiger’s win shows comparing different eras in sports is, well, impossible

Andy Hodges
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Tiger’s win shows comparing different eras in sports is, well, impossible

Tiger Woods won The Masters on Sunday and the next day it often appeared the media world was in a race to see who cried the most and could proclaim him the greatest of all time.

I’m not sure he’s the best golfer in the world today, but he was on Sunday.

As for the greatest of all time? Stop it. He’s the best of his era, which was a nice little run from 1996-2011 and that’s just going by the numbers. He also had considerably more marketing than any other golfer in history, but that’s not a criiticism.

You can’t even say his resurrection at The Masters was even the greatest comeback in golf’s history. It certainly wasn’t the biggest position comeback at that event (Gary Player coming from eighth place on Sunday to win in 1978 leaps to mind immediately). Tiger started the day in second place just two shots back.

It may not even be the fastest comeback from a serious injury in the sport’s history to win a major.

Ben Hogan, who basically invented most of what golf is today, had a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus down in Texas in February 1949.

The crash nearly killed him, leaving him with a double-fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collar bone, a left ankle fracture, a chipped rib, and near-fatal blood clots. The injuries caused lifelong circulation problems and other physical limitations. His doctors said he might never walk again.

The blood clots were so bad they had to tie off the venae cava, which returns deoxygenated blood from the body into the heart, which is kind of a big deal.

Hogan won the U.S. Open in 1950, gimping around the course basically on one leg less than 18 months after all of those injuries.

In 1953 he became the first golfer to win three major championships in one year. It might have been four, but the PGA and British Open overlapped in those days and going to the Open is considered a bigger deal.

Tiger did it in 2000, but that was a decade before his back problems. Hogan did it 18 months after nearly dying. He played just a year from the accident and tied Sam Snead in the Los Angeles Open to start the 1950 season before losing in an 18-hold playoff. Snead least Tiger by one in total number of tournament victories.

Hogan won 64 tournaments during his career, but didn’t play that many. The 1953 season where he won three majors was half of the total tournaments he entered. He won two of the other three (yes, he won five of the six tournaments he entered).

Was he better than Tiger? Nobody knows. Bobby Jones may have been better than all of them but he never played professionally, but there would no Masters without him.

Hogan didn’t play with metal woods or finely-engineered clubs with scientifically-developed balls that traveled maximum distance.

Oh, and Tiger didn’t have to go into military service five years into his pro career flying planes for the Army during World War II like Hogan did.

Then you get to Jack Nicklaus. You can even get a pretty good debate from some he wasn’t the best in his era, but nobody else has his numbers (including Tiger). Again, his total tournament wins came in a time when they didn’t play 10 months a year with the overall number of events they have now.

Nicklaus still has the most major tournament titles, though. He is probably still a better putter than nearly everybody on the tour today and Jack is nearly 80.

Golfers in Hogan’s entire era and the early part of Nicklaus’ time had to have real jobs in addition to playing golf.

“Golf was kind of our hobby,” one Byron Nelson told me one time. He was part of the Hogan era and a fairly well-renowed ball-striker. “It didn’t pay enough to feed the family back then.”

Don’t start the GOAT talk. That’s ridiculous in any sport because rules changes, technology, training and medical advances render it impossible without a set of common environments.

Tiger’s win on Sunday was a nice win that had a feel-good ending. He basically saved golf from itself in 1996 when the sport was in dire need of diversity and a personality. The ones who had carried it previously were getting old and doing more hobbling than walking.

Television needed Tiger as much as anything. They really didn’t have anybody that got folks terribly interested. He filled that void.

His win, in perspective, could just end up being an interesting Masters that delivered monster television ratings, especially on CBS on Sunday morning followed by a replay. Some unexpected weather helped there.

Tiger’s win was a nice accomplishment and he deserves all the accolades for coming back from a back issue that threatened to put him in the gallery for good, but it was one win in one tournament.

I’m not real sure, though, it was even the greatest comeback in golf history.

But calling him the greatest in the history of the sport is an impossible evaluation.

Razorbacks, Golden Lions meet Tuesday for first time in program history

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Razorbacks, Golden Lions meet Tuesday for first time in program history

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas looks to build on its five-game winning streak on Tuesday, hosting Arkansas-Pine Bluff for an mid-week non-conference contest.

The Razorbacks and Golden Lions will be meeting for the first time in program history with first pitch slated for 6 p.m.

Arkansas (31-14) is coming off an eventful week with five wins over Wichita State and Furman.

The Razorbacks most recently secured two run-rule victories over Furman on Sunday (April 14), outscoring the Paladins 11-0 in game one and 9-1 in game two.

The five wins were highlighted with a 12-inning 6-5 victory over Furman on Saturday (April 13).

The Golden Lions are headed to Fayetteville after they dropped two games to Grambling State, 11-2 and 5-4, on Friday afternoon.

UAPB (4-25) is one of four teams that Arkansas has faced or will face in 2019 for the first time in program history this season (UAPB, Campbell, Furman, Lipscomb).

UAPB is the only SWAC team to face the Razorbacks this season.

Arkansas is 17-1 against SWAC teams in program history. The last SWAC team to defeat the Hogs was Jackson State in 2014 (L, 3-1 in Jackson).

Just keep running, just keep running

Arkansas has looked to their dugout multiple times this year to add speed to the bases, scoring 34 runs off pinch runners.

Sam Torres, Sydney Benz, Maggie Hicks, Ryan Jackson, Carley Haizlip and Keely Edwards have all scored runs as pinch runners for the Hogs. Torres currently leads the pack with 11 runs.

Razorback notables

• Nicole Duncan’s 14 hit-by-pitch calls in 2019 is two-short of the single-season high of 16, set by Kim Eiben in 2002.

• As a team, the Hogs have been hit 49 times at the plate, a single-season high in program history.

• Kayla Green is only one of four SEC catchers to catch eight or more runners stealing – of those four, Green has the least number of stolen bases allowed (4) and therefore the best SBA% (.333).

• Green’s 23 career runners caught stealing is one away from ranking 10th for CSB in a career at Arkansas.

10 years at Bogle

The 2019 season marks the 10th season in Bogle Park. Since its opening, the Hogs have played 251 games there for a combined 141-110 record.

Razorbacks host Golden Lions on Tuesday in second ‘Natural State Series’

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Razorbacks host Golden Lions on Tuesday in second ‘Natural State Series’

FAYETTEVILLE — Coming off an exciting comeback win against Vanderbilt on Sunday, Arkansas dips back into non-conference play Tuesday against Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions.

This will be the first-ever meeting between the two state programs.

First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home. It will be broadcast online via SEC Network+ and the Watch ESPN app.

The Razorbacks (26-10, 9-6 SEC) will be playing their second game of the year against an in-state team as they faced Little Rock two weeks ago, which was also the first-ever meeting.

Arkansas is fresh off a 2-2 week after beating Oral Roberts last Tuesday and then avoiding a sweep at the hands of Vanderbilt on Sunday with a five-run ninth inning as the Hogs pounded out a season-high 22 hits in the 14-12 victory.

The win was Arkansas’ ninth in conference play and kept it within a game of the overall lead in the SEC Western Division.

The 22 hits in Sunday’s victory were the most by an Arkansas team since 2018 in a 32-4 win over Bucknell and were its most runs scored in a conference game this year.

Eight of Arkansas’ nine starters recorded two hits or more in the game led by sophomores Heston Kjerstad and Casey Opitz, who each had four hits.

Opitz had a career day going 4-for-5 with three RBIs and two runs scored. He hit his first career home run in the top of the eighth inning when the Hogs were down 11-8 and started the big rally that came to a zenith in the ninth.

Coach Dave Van Horn announced that he will send freshman Connor Noland to the mound for the start on Tuesday against UAPB.

Noland was roughed up in his last appearance making the start in Saturday’s 12-2 loss at Vanderbilt, but only threw 15 pitches and is expected to be fresh for Tuesday.

Follow live

Tuesday’s game with the Golden Lions will be available via SEC Network+ and the ESPN app. Brett Dolan (PxP) and Troy Eklund (Analyst) will have the call.

Fans can listen to the radio call via the Razorback Gameday app and on ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home as Phil Elson and Bubba Carpenter will have the call from Baum-Walker Stadium.

Pregame coverage begins at 6 p.m. There will also be a live radio link available on ArkansasRazorbacks.com.

Important Links
Live Video – WATCH
Live Stats – VIEW
Live Audio – LISTEN

Probable starters

(ARK) RHP Connor Noland (0-2, 5.94 ERA, 22 K, 10 BB) vs. (UAPB) LHP Carlos Benoit (0-5, 6.69 ERA, 22 K, 16 BB)

Razorback Prime Nine

• Tuesday’s matchup between Arkansas and Arkansas-Pine Bluff will be the first-ever between the two programs and the second for Arkansas against an in-state school in program history (Little Rock – April 2).

• Arkansas is 17-4 in non-conference games this season with 13 of those wins coming at Baum-Walker Stadium. Arkansas is hitting .312 as a team in non-conference games with 24 of its 38 home runs coming in those games.

• The Razorbacks outslugged the Commodores to a 14-12 win on Sunday in Nashville and notching a season-high 22 hits in the process. It’s the most hits in a game by an Arkansas team since the second game of the 2018 season against Bucknell (Feb. 17, 2018).

• Sophomore catcher Casey Opitz earned his first multi-hit game since the season-opener on Sunday, going 4-for-5 with his first career home run. Opitz only had four hits in the last six games prior to his career day.

• Sophomore designated hitter Matt Goodheart had three multi-hit games last week and continues to lead the team in the slash categories (.392/.478/.546). He’s fourth in the SEC in both batting average and on-base percentage.

• Since Trevor Ezell took over the leadoff spot (April 2), the redshirt senior is hitting .306 (11-for-36) with six extra-base hits and 11 RBIs. He’s had three multi-hit games during that eight-game stretch, including two three-hit games.

• Junior Dominic Fletcher remains tied with Mississippi State’s Jake Mangum with 17 doubles on the year, which leads the SEC. Fletcher had only two hits in the Vanderbilt series, but three of his last eight hits have been doubles.

• Right-hander Connor Noland will get the start on Tuesday against UAPB. He’ll be making his second-midweek appearance this season. He pitched one inning against Missouri State (March 26), retiring three straight batters.

• Sophomores Heston Kjerstad and Matt Goodheart are both on nine-game hitting streaks going into Tuesday against the Golden Lions. Over the last nine games, the duo has combined to hit .402 with 12 extra-base hits 21 RBIs and five home runs.

Up next

Arkansas remains home for an important SEC series against Mississippi State starting on Thursday at Baum-Walker Stadium.

The series opener is set for 8 p.m. on ESPNU, while game two will follow on Friday at 6:30 p.m. on SEC Network+.

The series finale will be played on Saturday at 2 p.m., also on SEC Network+.

???? Monday Halftime Pod — featuring Kevin McPherson of Pig Trail Nation

Tye Richardson
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???? Monday Halftime Pod — featuring Kevin McPherson of Pig Trail Nation

Phil & Tye hit on the win over Vandy in Game 3, interview Kevin McPherson, and more!

Amer, Schultz conclude competition at FINA Grand Prix

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Amer, Schultz conclude competition at FINA Grand Prix

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Arkansas’ Maha Amer and Brooke Schultz concluded competition at the FINA Grand Prix this weekend, with Schultz taking second in the 3-meter synchro.

Amer competed in two events on the final day of competition, three overall. The Cairo, Egypt, native finished in eighth-place in the 3-meter synchro with partner Habiba Shoeib, recording a 239.67.

She finished in sixth-place in the 3-meter mixed synchro, earning a score of 257.52 with partner Mohab Ishak.

Schultz competed in just one event during the competition, taking silver in the 3-meter synchro. She recorded a 290.40 with partner Murphy Bromberg, just 3.99 points off a first-place finish.

Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday

Tye Richardson
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Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Monday

John & Tommy discuss Tiger’s victory, emotions in sports, plus the Best/Worst from the weekend!

Five-run rally keys 14-12 comeback win over Vanderbilt on Sunday

ESPN Arkansas News Services
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Five-run rally keys 14-12 comeback win over Vanderbilt on Sunday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Arkansas trailed by two runs heading into the ninth inning Sunday against, scored five runs and completed a major comeback, avoiding a sweep with a 14-12 victory.

The Hogs trailed 11-9 going into the ninth, but sophomore Casey Martin got the rally started with a one-out single and was brought around to score in the next at-bat as sophomore Matt Goodheart tripled to left, making it 11-10.

Goodheart was 2-for-5 with two RBIs and finished the weekend 6-for-11 (.545) with four extra-base hits and his only RBIs coming in Sunday’s game.

Junior Dominic Fletcher followed suit with an RBI single of his own to right field to tie the game at 11-11, but the Razorbacks weren’t done.

After Heston Kjerstad struck out to put the Commodores one out away from getting out of the inning, junior Jack Kenley walked and redshirt freshman Jacob Nesbit doubled down the left field line and gave the Razorbacks the 12-11 lead.

Vanderbilt went to its bullpen to bring in its closer in Tyler Brown, but the fresh arm didn’t change the outcome as Casey Opitz completed a four-hit day with a two-RBI single to left as a fielding error allowed Kenley and Nesbit to score for the 13th and 14th runs of the day.

Opitz had his best offensive day of his career on Sunday, going 4-for-5 with three RBIs and a home run. The long ball came in the fourth inning and was his first of his collegiate career.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Vanderbilt pulled within two after Austin Martin hit the Commodores’ fourth home run of the day, a solo shot to left field, making it 14-12.

After already using Matt Cronin earlier in the game and Vanderbilt threatening with two runners on base, head coach Dave Van Horn went with righty Marshall Denton to get the final two outs.

Denton struck out Vandy’s No. 5 and 6 hitters to secure his first save of his career.

Arkansas (26-10, 9-6 SEC) churned out a season-high 22 hits in the game and eight of its nine starters had two hits or more.

Opitz and Kjerstad both had the top hitting lines with four hits a piece. Kjerstad matched his career-high hit total and had his second four-hit game of the season.

He also extended his hitting streak to nine games and has two hits or more in five of those nine games.

Redshirt senior Trevor Ezell broke out with a 3-for-6 day at the plate, matching a career-high two doubles along with three RBIs.

Martin also had three hits, while Goodheart, Fletcher, Nesbit and Kenley had two hits each.

Up next

Arkansas is back home for the remainder of the month of April as it will start a long homestand with Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Tuesday at Baum-Walker Stadium.

First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. and it will be broadcast on SEC Network+.

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