FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas rallied from three different deficits Friday night to defeat Tennessee in a slugfest, 11-9, at Baum-Walker Stadium.
It’s the fifth-straight conference win for Arkansas and gives it a game and a half lead in the SEC Western Division.
Redshirt freshman Jacob Nesbit came away with a blistering line, going 3-for-3 with a career-high six RBIs including a double and a home run.
His three-run home run in the fifth tied the game at 7-7 and followed it up with a two-run double in the sixth to help build Arkansas’ lead to 11-7 at the time.
Nesbit’s home run was his third of the year and second in three games. Over his last four games, Nesbit has driven in 12 runs on seven hits and is now hitting an even .300 on the year.
Arkansas (32-11, 13-6 SEC) was in a hole early against Tennessee (31-12, 9-10 SEC) as the Volunteers jumped on starting pitcher Isaiah Campbell for a run in the first and three runs in the third inning.
Campbell didn’t have his best stuff as he finished with seven runs allowed over 4.2 innings, but only three of those runs were earned.
However, the Razorbacks came back swinging each time as they matched the Volunteers with a run in the first, three in the third, and again, three in the fifth after Tennessee took a 7-4 lead.
The Hogs finally got the big inning in the sixth once Tennessee went to its bullpen as redshirt senior Trevor Ezell hit a lead off homer to give Arkansas an 8-7 lead.
That was followed by a Jack Kenley RBI single and Nesbit’s double.
Matt Cronin closed the door for his ninth save of the season after pitching a scoreless ninth and striking out the final two batters.
Hog offense keeps swinging
Arkansas scored 11 times on 16 hits Friday night against Tennessee, its sixth game of its last eight that it has scored 10 or more runs.
Six different players recorded multi-hit games, with Jacob Nesbit and Trevor Ezell leading all hitters with three hits each.
Four of Arkansas’ last five conference games have resulted in 10 or more runs being scored and Casey Martin leads all hitters during that stretch with a .476 average. Nesbit has 13 RBIs during that span as well.
Ezell breaks out another three-hit game
Redshirt senior Trevor Ezell went 3-for-5 in Friday’s game with Tennessee, scoring twice and driving in one. Ezell has five hits in his last two games and has tallied three three-hit games in his last eight starts.
Much of Ezell’s success as of late has been his move to the lead-off spot in the batting order. Ezell made the move on April 2 against Little Rock and since then has batted .333 with nine extra-base hits and 14 RBIs.
His homer on Friday was also his first since April 6 at Auburn and fifth of the year.
Razorback quotables
“He came up clutch. Obviously, he got the sac fly and had the three-run homer, the big double down the line, drove in two more. Again, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about a win if he didn’t have the big night. That’s what it takes, somebody picking you up, somebody having a big night. Tennessee, they came out and swung the bats. It ended up turning into kind of a slugfest. I don’t think either coach probably saw that coming. I know I didn’t.” — Coach Dave Van Horn on Jacob Nesbit’s game
“I don’t think either coach saw that coming. Their (Tennessee’s) ERA is incredible for this time of year, and you kind of see why, they’ve got some big time arms. Isaiah (Campbell) had been pretty consistent all year, but tonight wasn’t his night. You got to give Tennessee hitters credit because they did a nice job against him. Isaiah just didn’t have the secondary pitches going like normal. He’d probably tell you that he didn’t spot his fastball as much as normal. It just seemed like the zone was pretty tight there both ways. I think it was hard on the starters.” — Van Horn on the pitching performances for both teams
“It was up tonight. I don’t know what the gun — we’ll look at ours. Yeah, I mean, he was bringing it a little bit. The other night, not so much. So tonight, I just feel like he had a lot of adrenaline going. I think he was frustrated the way it went the other night as well and he had something to prove. Tonight, he was back to his old self as far as velocity and he threw a lot of strikes as well.” — Van Horn on Matt Cronin’s velocity
“Yeah, great night. I got a fastball and just put my best swing on it and thankfully it went out. The team really put together a good offensive showing today and it was really good to see. It was a fun one for sure.” — Jacob Nesbit on his home run and how the offense performed against Tennessee’s pitching
“It shows what we’re capable of doing. Isaiah (Campbell) didn’t have his best stuff tonight like he has all year and it was good that the offense was able to pick him up so to be able to do that we feel pretty good about ourselves for sure.” — Trevor Ezell on the offense performing after Isaiah Campbell didn’t have his best stuff
Up Next
Arkansas and Tennessee will be back on the field tomorrow for game two of the series which is set to start at 6:30 p.m. at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The game will be televised online via SEC Network+.
