Playing games in Little Rock is a ridiculously bad idea
“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it,” was how the esteemed Samuel Langhorne Clemens put it as his alter ego of Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
That pretty much describes the situation the University of Arkansas finds itself as we get ready for the next — and potentially last — round of debate over the Razorbacks playing football games in Little Rock.
Oh, it’s coming … sooner rather than later.
The time has come to end what has become an almost laughable embarrassment. Yes, War Memorial is an embarrassment for an SEC-caliber team to be playing any kind of game there.
There once was a time when it was an advantage playing there. Most Razorback fans either weren’t alive or too young to recall the glory days when there were four games a year played there. For the last few years it’s become an expensive distraction that has ballooned with the decline of the Hogs in football.
Now at least one former player has let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, about what the players think about the game.
Many fans are ready to be done with Little Rock. I can tell you 1st hand that the players hate playing in Little Rock. It’s time to be done with it
— Bijhon Jackson (@BijhonJ) May 3, 2018
Actually, I’ve had that feeling for a number of years from the players. Nobody’s going to say it, of course. That’s not the correct thing to say.
There is a lot of sentiment from some about tradition and all that. Well, my first Razorback games as a kid were at War Memorial Stadium and sometime about 1978 I realized the place was a dump. I wrote it and said it … and was promptly chastised, but it didn’t change my mind.
When the interstate was completed, the stadium expanded (before the South end zone was completed), I said again it was time to quick the ridiculousness of a game in Little Rock.
As I was south of Little Rock when writing and saying that on the air, everybody raised several kinds of a ruckus. None of it changed the fact that playing home games anywhere but Fayetteville hasn’t made sense for years.
Houston Nutt was the last Hogs coach that really embraced playing in Little Rock. I don’t care what the others said and anything Bobby Petrino said I would want witnessed, notarized and photographed anyway.
You could tell from body language and reading between the lines of what Bret Bielema said he didn’t like playing games at War Memorial. In five years, he had a miserable record in Little Rock (3-3).
John L. Smith was 0-2 and Petrino never lost a game there, going 8-0, beating LSU twice, Mississippi State twice and some lower-tier teams. That was the last of glory years, although Jeff Long didn’t particularly care for the amount of money the UA was losing every time they played there.
And that is the entire crux of the issue.
In the competitive world of the SEC, money is the biggest competition. Winning considerably more than you lose helps accumulate the money. Paying to play there should not even be a consideration.
Also there is a significant disadvantage for recruiting playing games in Little Rock. If potential future Razorbacks want to go to the game, well, they need to have a ticket. Playing the game in Fayetteville makes it a true recruiting advantage.
But it comes back to winning.
If Arkansas is winning enough, it doesn’t matter where the games are played. The stadium will be packed, the tailgate areas will be buzzing hours before kickoff and the atmosphere will be big time.
Fans complain about the seating. In case you don’t know it’s the same seating arrangement as when it seated around just 50,000 fans. Frank Broyles simply made the seats a little narrower and increased the number. That came a few years after they dug down in the stadium and added some seating lower along the sidelines.
Some say there are influential boosters in Little Rock and other areas south that want at least a game every year to be played down there.
Fine. Let them make up the financial difference. Better yet, let them sit in the stands, use the concession stands and bathrooms down below.
To quote Mr. Spock from Star Trek, “Change is the essential process of all existence.”
You may not like it, but the pointy-eared Vulcan has a good point. Yes, there are many, many fond memories for those of us that grew up south of the mountains about Razorback games in Little Rock.
But things change.
In today’s world, players don’t want to play there, coaches don’t want to be there (although, granted, they hate distractions no matter how minor or trivial) and somebody’s going to have to pony up big bucks for renovations to get the stadium to minimum SEC standards. Quite frankly, the only way it should even be considered is if the stadium is upgrade beyond SEC standards and they pay the difference to the UA of playing a game in Fayetteville.
To put it simply, War Memorial Stadium should have been imploded years ago. It’s a half-step above a dump for big time college football games.
And it’s beyond time for Arkansas to change it’s stance on playing football games in Little Rock. Whether you like it or not.
Tradition is nice, primarily for memories
Fassi in lead; Hogs go 4-under at first round of NCAA regional
AUSTIN, Texas — Arkansas junior Maria Fassi led the field with seven birdies and finished round one of the 2018 NCAA Austin Regional tied for second place at the University of Texas Golf Course in Austin on Monday.
Fassi’s seven birdies helped the third-ranked Razorbacks to a 4-under 284 and second place with two rounds of play remaining.
The Pachuca, Mexico, native started her round with five birdies in the first 10 holes that she played. She stumbled a bit on holes 11, 12, and 13 but rallied playing her final five holes 2-under. Fassi’s 3-under 69 ties for the fourth-best round by a Razorback at an NCAA Regional.
Fassi is tied with three other players and they are just one shot behind the leader. The Razorbacks were one of just three teams with more than one player in the top-10 after the first round.
The team effort included a 2-under 70 from junior Dylan Kim and an even-par 72 from junior Kaylee Benton as Arkansas counted its second-best single round team total in program history.
Kim is tied for sixth and Benton is tied for 23rd after round one. Junior Cara Gorlei was 1-over with a 73 and senior Alana Uriell rounded out the Razorback scores with a 78.
The Razorbacks lead the field with 20 birdies in the first round on the par 72, 6,341-yard course.
Eighth-ranked Texas finished the day on top of the leaderboard with a 7-under 281, just three shots better than Arkansas. Michigan State is one shot back with a 285 followed by Virginia Tech and No. 35 Baylor shooting 288 to round out the top-5 team scores.
Play continues Tuesday and Wednesday with the top six teams from each of four NCAA Regional sites advancing to the NCAA Championship in Stillwater, Oklahoma, later this month.
The Lineup
| PLACE | PLAYER | SCORE | TO PAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| T2 | Maria Fassi | 69 | -3 |
| T6 | Dylan Kim | 70 | -2 |
| T23 | Kaylee Benton | 72 | E |
| T32 | Cara Gorlei | 73 | +1 |
| T77 | Alana Uriell | 78 | +6 |
The Field
| PLACE | PLAYER | SCORE | TO PAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No. 8 Texas | 281 | -7 |
| 2 | No. 3 Arkansas | 284 | -4 |
| 3 | No. 11 Michigan State | 285 | -3 |
| T4. | Virginia Tech | 288 | E |
| T4. | No. 35 Baylor | 288 | E |
| T6. | No. 41 Brigham Young | 291 | +3 |
| T6. | No. 14 Florida | 291 | +3 |
| 8 | No. 19 Auburn | 292 | +4 |
| 9 | No. 38 Texas A&M | 295 | +7 |
| T10. | UTSA | 287 | +10 |
| T10. | No. 30 Miami | 298 | +10 |
| T12 | No. 21 Oklahoma | 299 | +11 |
| T12. | No. 48 East Carolina | 299 | +11 |
| T14. | No. 49 Texas Tech | 300 | +12 |
| T14. | No. 25 Houston | 300 | +12 |
| 16 | Houston Baptist | 301 | +13 |
| 17 | Georgetown | 302 | +14 |
| 18 | Missouri Sate | 318 | +30 |
Van Horn addresses first base production for Hogs
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn visited with the media after talking to the Swatter’s Club on Monday and it wasn’t difficult to tell he’s been concerned about the lack of offensive production at first base this season.
Hogs get highest seed ever for SEC Tournament; face Kentucky
BATON ROUGE, La. — Having tallied the program’s highest SEC wins total since 2013, Arkansas will be the No. 7 seed in next week’s SEC Tournament and play 20th-ranked and No. 10 seed Kentucky in Wednesday’s first round.
The 2018 SEC Softball Tournament will be played at the Mizzou Softball Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
The 7-10 matchup between Arkansas and Kentucky will be the second game of the opening round and is set for a 1:30 p.m. first pitch on the SEC Network and through the WatchESPN app.
This season marks Arkansas’ 11th appearance in the SEC Tournament and second consecutive under coach Courtney Deifel. The Razorbacks finished the regular season with a 37-14 overall record and 12-12 mark in SEC play.
Wednesday’s game will be just the second time Arkansas and Kentucky will play in the conference tournament, and first time since 2001. The two teams did not play during the regular season.
Hogs can’t get timely hits in 5-0 loss at LSU
BATON ROUGE, La. — Arkansas struggled to get a timely hit with runners on base in Sunday’s 5-0 road loss at 13th-ranked LSU.
With the setback, the Razorbacks close out the 2018 regular season with a 37-14 record overall and a 12-12 mark in SEC play.
Up Next
The Razorbacks turn their attention to the postseason beginning with next week’s SEC Softball Tournament in Columbia, Mo.
Arkansas, the tournament’s No. 7 seed, is scheduled to play No. 20 and No. 10 seed Kentucky in Wednesday’s first round.
Game time is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.
With a perfectly placed single up the middle in the first inning, senior Autumn Buczek registered her fourth hit of the weekend and tied her career high with 58 hits this season.
Freshman Hannah McEwen drew a walk to lead off the game when LSU starter Allie Walljasper was called for an illegal pitch on a 3-1 pitch.
The Razorbacks had two on with no outs after Buczek’s single but the home team worked out of the jam unscathed.
Freshman starter Mary Haff retired the top of the LSU lineup in order to start the game but the home team got on the board with an unearned run in the bottom of the second inning.
LSU (40-13, 13-10 SEC) extended its advantage with four runs in the third which prompted head coach Courtney Deifel to turn to Autumn Storms in the circle.
The sophomore pitcher responded with 3.1 innings of scoreless relief work. In the sixth, the Tigers threatened to add to their lead with runners on second and third with nobody out but Storms responded by retiring the next three hitters without a run crossing the plate.
Arkansas had runners on first and second in the fifth and sixth innings but couldn’t produce a timely hit to break through on the scoreboard.
In the sixth frame, Katie Warrick tallied a one-out single with a shot deep in the 5-6 hole and Loren Krzysko dropped a single into center field to give the team two runners on base. However, Walljasper posted a strikeout to get out of the inning.
Hogs can’t complete comeback in loss at LSU
BATON ROUGE, La. — Arkansas nearly made a five-run comeback Sunday afternoon, pulling within one after a four-run seventh, but could never get over the hump.
LSU’s bullpen shut down the Hogs to win, 7-5, and take the series at Alex Box Stadium.
Arkansas (33-15, 14-10 SEC) never could get a lock on LSU starting pitcher A.J. Labas, scoring just one run off the freshman hurler in six innings, but took advantage of the Tigers’ first man out of the bullpen in Nick Bush in the seventh.
Four runs came home on just two hits as two LSU errors also helped the cause to help the Hogs pull within one at 6-5.
Unfortunately, that was the closest the Razorbacks got as the Tigers (28-20, 12-12 SEC) added an insurance run in the bottom half of the seventh on an RBI single by Zach Watson for the final tally.
The Razorbacks drop their fourth series of the conference season, all on the road, but is still alone at the top of the SEC Western Division, one game ahead of Ole Miss and Auburn.
Freshman Heston Kjerstad had a nice bounce-back game after his four strikeouts the night before, going 2-for-4 with three RBIs and a home run. He launched his 10th home run of the year in the top of the fifth inning to tie the game at 1-1 and joined Casey Martin and Eric Cole as the only Razorbacks with 10 or more home runs this year.
The 5-6-7 hitters for Arkansas, including redshirt senior Carson Shaddy, who was coming off a hand injury, contributed to six of Arkansas’ seven hits in the game.
Along with Kjerstad, Shaddy and junior catcher Grant Koch had two hits each.
Shaddy, who had missed the previous seven games after taking a ball off the hand in the final game of the Mississippi State series, went 2-for-4 with a run scored in the game and one double, his eighth of the year.
On the mound, it was a good start for redshirt sophomore Isaiah Campbell, who matched Labas pitch-for-pitch in the first four innings. Campbell struck out only two, but limited his pitch count and held LSU to just four hits and one run.
He ran into trouble at the start of the fifth with four-consecutive one-out hits and had to be relieved with two runs home in the inning and two runners still in scoring position.
Campbell finished with 4.1 innings pitched and five earned runs on eight hits and 74 pitches. He was saddled with the loss to fall to 3-5.
The bullpen behind Campbell gave the Hogs a chance over the second half of the game. Sophomore Evan Lee faced just three batters and got his team out of the big LSU fifth inning, then Cody Scroggins followed with only one run allowed in the fifth, his only inning of work.
Freshman Bryce Bonnin made his first appearance since March 30, but only lasted a third of an inning as LSU hitters were able to get a single and a double, including the insurance run by Watson.
Junior Barrett Loseke was the final pitcher for the Hogs and threw 1.2 scoreless innings in his second appearance of the weekend.
Up Next
Arkansas returns home for its final regular-season series of the 2018 season at Baum Stadium when it plays host to Texas A&M for a three-game set starting on Friday.
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. and will be televised on the SEC Network.
Report says Richardson has applied for sixth year
A new rule has apparently opened the door to allow Arkansas defensive back Kevin Richardson to send in an application for a sixth year of eligibility.
HawgSports.com reported Sunday it learned that Richardson has sent in the application.
The new rule passed April 18 allows college football players who redshirted their first year and then missed a year of football due to injury to be accepted for a sixth year of eligibility.
Under the previous rule, the sixth year was granted only to players who missed two years of football due to injuries, but the rule also said all applications would be reviewed, even those that would be considered non-traditional.
Richardson never even applied under this rule, waiting for the amendment to be passed.
The reason for the rule change is that players who did not redshirt their first year and got injured later had the ability to use that redshirt during their injury year and still retain the existing years of eligibility.
But if a player redshirted his first year and was injured, that season was completely lost under the current setup. One guy gets to play four years, the other only gets three.
Richardson, from Jacksonville, joined the Hogs as a walk-on in 2013. He redshirted his first year but was soon finding himself in the defensive back rotation.
In 2016, he earned the starting nickel job but suffered a severe torn pectoral early in the season. He started at nickel all of last season and also saw action at cornerback.
Hogs drop second game; rubber game Sunday
LSU scored four runs over the seventh and eighth innings and the Razorbacks left five runners on base over the final five innings allowing the Tigers to take game two of the three-game series, 6-4.
Arkansas (33-14, 14-9 SEC) had battled back from a two-run deficit early on with the help of a two-run home run from Dominic Fletcher in the third and then took the one-run lead on a bases-loaded walk in the fifth, but could not generate any more runs the rest of the way.
The Hogs had a chance to add to their lead in the fifth with the bases loaded and one out, but an inning-ending double play cut that rally short.
Even with a run in the top of the ninth to cut the LSU (27-20, 11-12 SEC) lead to two, Arkansas still only managed to put two runners into scoring position over the final four frames.
Starting pitcher Kacey Murphy worked around a long first inning and ended up with 6.1 innings pitched and just two earned runs allowed with two walks and five strikeouts on 95 pitches.
Murphy had a stretch from the end of the third through the sixth inning where he retired 10 in a row and only needed 39 pitches to do it.
For Murphy, it was his fifth-straight start of five innings or more and he has only walked four batters over his last 29 innings pitched.
After 11 appearances this year, Murphy now has a 5.8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, 6.7 in conference games.
On the offensive end, the top three in Arkansas’ lineup made up eight of the Hogs’ nine hits in the game. Fletcher and freshman Casey Martin tallied three hits each, while junior Eric Cole turned in a two-hit game of his own to give him five hits for the series.
Cole is now hitting .342 on the year with a team-leading 66 hits. He has at least one hit in eight of his last nine games and has delivered three-straight multi-hit performances.
As for Fletcher, the centerfielder fell just a triple short of the cycle, finishing 3-for-5 with a run scored and two runs driven in. Both of those RBIs came on his third-inning home run, his seventh of the year and fifth in SEC play.
Fletcher has now homered in three of his last five games and is hitting .415 over his last 10 games with 11 RBIs. Tonight’s performance was also his fifth game this year with three hits or more and seventh multi-RBI game.
Up Next
Arkansas and LSU will play a rubber match for the three-game series on Sunday starting at 2 p.m. at Alex Box Stadium.
The game will be televised online on SEC Network+.
Razorbacks drop second game in series at LSU
Arkansas had four players with two hits including Krzysko and fellow senior Autumn Buczek who also tallied an RBI in the setback. The Razorbacks drop to 37-13 this year and 12-11 in SEC play.
Up Next
Sunday’s game three — the regular-season finale for both teams — is scheduled for a 3 p.m. start on ESPNU.
The game will also be streamed online on SEC Network+ though the WatchESPN app.
In the booth, Cara Capuano and Jennie Ritter will handle the play-by-play and color commentary duties, respectively.
The Razorbacks threatened in the top of the first with runners on first and second but LSU starter Maribeth Gorsuch got out of the inning with a strikeout.
Autumn Buczek legged out an infield single and moved up into scoring position on a base hit by Katie Warrick to start the would-be rally.
The Tigers responded by scoring an unearned run in the home half of the inning to take an early 1-0 advantage.
Arkansas put two on in each of the next two innings but came up empty, pushing its left-on-base total to six through the first three innings of the game.
After the Razorbacks left runners on second and third, LSU (39-13, 12-10 SEC) pushed its lead to 2-0 with a two-out single through the left side.
Leading off the fourth inning, Krzysko took the 0-1 offering from Gorsuch to straight-away center for her seventh home run of the year. The senior outfielder had three home runs through her first three seasons in Fayetteville and is up to 10 for her career.
Arkansas now has 52 home runs this season.
The fourth-inning rally continued with a long single by Ashley Diaz — Carley Haizlip in to pinch run — and walk to Tori Cooper.
A groundout to second moved both runners into scoring position and Buczek drove in the game-tying run with a sacrifice fly to center that allowed Haizlip to score from third.
However, the Tigers answered right back with four runs in the bottom of the fourth to re-take the lead.
In the fifth, the offense was retired in order for the first time this weekend and the home team plated four more runs to secure the run-rule victory.
