SDS’s Connor O’Gara doesn’t find it really that surprising the same teams are in the playoff every year considering their consistency winning.
Goldwire returns to join Neighbors’ staff with Razorbacks
Mike Neighbors filled Arkansas’ assistant coach vacancy with a familiar face, as Lacey Goldwire was named to the position on Monday.
It will be Goldwire’s second stint on the Hill, as she also served on Neighbors’ staff for the first two seasons of his tenure as the head coach at Arkansas (2017-19).
“Lacey Goldwire’s fingerprints are all over everything successful we’ve done with this program,” Neighbors said. “She impacted our roster, our locker room, and our community for two years, and it started from day one.
“Having her back reunites our original crew that put our blueprint into action. She will seamlessly return and help us knock down the next domino that’s in front of us.
“Lacey will assist me on the defensive side and in opponent scouting. She will team with recruiting coordinator Pauline Love to make sure our story is shared with future prospects. Lacey has touched virtually every aspect inside an SEC program and will be huge in helping us remain relevant among the game’s elite.”
For Goldwire, the 2020-21 campaign marked her ninth season full-time and her 13th year overall in the coaching profession, including stops at Oklahoma State, Morehead State, Iowa, Arkansas and most recently, Tennessee.
She has been part of programs that have earned postseason berths in 10 of those 13 seasons, and would have an 11th if the 2020 NCAA Tournament hadn’t been canceled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
During Goldwire’s two seasons on Rocky Top, Tennessee forged a combined 38-18 overall mark and 19-10 record in SEC play, notching a pair of third-place league finishes and advancing to the SEC Tournament semifinals in 2021 for the first time since 2016.
The Lady Vols defeated four ranked opponents in 2020-21, including No. 2/3 South Carolina, and earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Lady Vols finished 17-8 overall and 9-4 in SEC games, ending the year ranked No. 14 in the AP Poll and 16th in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll.
As previously mentioned, Goldwire came to Knoxville via Fayetteville after two seasons of coaching the Hogs.
She played an important role in the Razorback rebuild, as the Hogs went from 13-18 in Neighbors’ first season (2017-18) to 22-15 in 2018-19, including a trip to the SEC Tournament championship game and the WNIT’s third round.
Prior to joining Neighbors in Fayetteville, Goldwire contributed to four postseason appearances in as many years at the University of Iowa.
She worked with the wing players and served as the recruiting coordinator for the Hawkeyes, helping set the table for a run to the 2019 NCAA Elite Eight.
Her initial season in Iowa City was the first of back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament. A 27-win season included a second-round appearance in the Big Dance in 2013-14.
Iowa returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2014-15 and defeated 14th-seeded American (75-67) in the first round and 11th-seeded Miami (88-70) in the second round. The victory secured a Sweet Sixteen berth at home on Mediacom Court in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Goldwire spent the 2012-13 season as an assistant coach at Morehead State. Prior to joining the Eagles’ staff, Goldwire served on the Oklahoma State staff for four seasons — two as a student assistant (2008-10) and two as a graduate assistant (2010-12).
Following Oklahoma State’s tragic loss of its head and assistant coach during a plane crash in November of 2011, Goldwire was elevated to interim assistant coach, where she took on added recruiting duties.
During her time with the program, the Cowgirls won 80 games and advanced to the postseason all four years, winning the 2012 WNIT championship.
A native of Oklahoma City, Goldwire played collegiately at East Central (Okla.) University, where she ranks fifth in career scoring with 1,340 points.
She averaged 21.1 points and 5.9 rebounds as a senior and was tabbed Lone Star Conference North Co-Player of the Year and Second-Team All-South Central Region. She also earned ECU’s Athlete of the Year honor in 2007-08. She was named honorable mention All-LSC following her sophomore and junior campaigns.
Goldwire, an all-state and all-city player at Del City (Okla.) High School, graduated from Oklahoma State with a bachelor of science in education and a master’s degree in teaching, learning and leadership in 2010.
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast: Who’s your daddy?
Tye and Tommy on the win over Tennessee, Dave Van Horn and Tony Vitello sharing their conversation, hitting a house while golfing and more!
Winning West nice, but Van Horn has bigger goal in mind
Dave Van Horn probably won’t say it publicly, but he might send Missouri a thank-you text after downing Tennessee on Sunday to win another series.
The Tigers went to Starkville, took two of three games from Mississippi State and now the Razorbacks have a two-game lead in the SEC West with a series against Florida at Baum-Walker all that’s left before the tournaments.
“I want to win the West,” Van Horn said after a 3-2 pitchers’ duel in Knoxville to stay perfect on every series the Hogs have played this season. “We play everybody in the West and went 15-3 against the West.”
Arkansas has a one-game lead over the Vols now for the SEC overall title, but that doesn’t mean much to Van Horn.
“If we win the overall that’s awesome,” he said. “Let’s win the West, let’s win Thursday.”
That’s how championship coaches talk. Van Horn’s goal every year is to win in Omaha, which has been agonizingly close. He has built the Hogs’ baseball program into something similar to what Nick Saban has done at Alabama.
He just needs to hang a couple of national championship banners in a sport that is very difficult to win a title doing.
“I haven’t talked to the team one time about winning a championship,” Van Horn said. “They know where we’re at and they want to win.”
But he does acknowledge the obvious — the Hogs are in the best position.
“We’re in a good position,” Van Horn said. “We’re right where we want to be. We’re at the top of the standings going into the last week.”
People that follow baseball a lot closer than me have said in the past few days the Hogs probably could drop the series against Florida and still be No. 1. The SEC Tournament is for lower-seeded teams to haggle over their spot in the pecking order.
Arkansas will be right in one of the top spots around June no matter what happens over the next couple of weeks.
It might be a good bet the Hogs are already putting some thought into a couple of weeks down the road in terms of lining up pitching and things like that.
Don’t get that wrong. Van Horn wants to win every game but he’s not going to jeopardize anything for what matters, which is the NCAA.
He knows the fans would like to win down in Hoover at the league tournament and he wouldn’t mind adding that trophy, either, but it’s not the ultimate goal.
Winning in Omaha is.
Moore on ‘knowing we’ll win’ when reliever Kopps comes in
Hogs second baseman Robert Moore delivered an RBI single in the ninth that proved to be huge in 3-2 win over Tennessee on Sunday.
Van Horn on winning ‘good series’ against Vols with 3-2 win
Dave Van Horn was just glad to come out of Knoxville with a 3-2 win Sunday and he wasn’t getting into a postgame conversation with Vols coach Tony Vitello.
Inconsistencies in bullpen pop up in walk-off loss to Vols
You kind of figured pitching inconsistencies were going to bite Arkansas sooner or later this season against a good team.
That’s exactly what happened Saturday.
Don’t be too quick to blame Jaxon Wiggins, who served up the walk-off three-run homer to Tennessee’s Max Ferguson that tied them with the Razorbacks for the best record in the SEC.
Wiggins started the season on a hot streak, then disappeared for 22 days before starting against Arkansas State on Tuesday and had enough success to give Van Horn some confidence to bring him into a tight spot.
“We had a chance to win the series right there,” Dave Van Horn said later. “He was the obvious guy. If we had brought somebody else in and it didn’t go well we would have second-guessed ourselves.”
Don’t blame Van Horn, either. He didn’t have a lot of proven options after Kevin Kopps threw 66 pitches to nail down Friday night’s win. Wiggins’ four saves are second-best on the team behind Kopps.
It might not have even come down to that if Caleb Bolden hadn’t come in and settled things down after Peyton Pallette’s rough 3.1 innings to start the game.
Bolden lasted 3.1 innings and gave way to Ryan Costieu gave up one run in 1.1 innings and the bullpen was already starting to get thin.
“Costeiu, he was done,” Van Horn said. “That’s what he does. Four outs maybe. Every time we’ve sent him back out (after that) it hasn’t gone real good.”
Kopps was never going to pitch today.
“I didn’t even have his name on the board,” Van Horn said.
So Wiggins was the obvious choice.
“We went with a guy that had closed some games,” Van Horn said of the decision. “He had some saves in some big games early.”
Now a Razorbacks’ team that was gut-punched when they thought a series win was almost in the bag, they have to come back Sunday at noon against a Tennessee team that has some confidence and has jumped out to a 5-0 lead both days of this series.
And Van Horn wasn’t saying who was going to start even he even knew Saturday afternoon.
“There’s a couple of guys we have in mind,” Van Horn said. “One left, one right.”
Now he’s got to get a team ready to come back from an emotional loss they haven’t had to deal with this season.
“Just told them that’s the way the game works every now and then,” was Van Horn’s message after the game. “Just have to get over it. Tomorrow’s a big game.”
All that’s on the line is the No. 1 ranking in the league heading into the final weekend of the regular season and a series matchup with Florida at a Baum-Walker Stadium that won’t have any restrictions on crowd size.
Van Horn is confident.
“They’re going to be fine,” Van Horn said about the players. “We just need to go out and play ball.”
Finding some pitching will help, too.
First pitch is at noon and Phil Elson will be on the air with the pregame show starting at 11:30 Sunday morning that you can listen to online HERE or on the radio at ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.
Vols burn Razorbacks with ninth-inning walk-offer homer
Three outs away from a ninth consecutive SEC series win, top-ranked Arkansas was burned by a three-run, walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth, falling to No. 4 Tennessee in a heartbreaker, 8-7, on Saturday afternoon at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
The Razorbacks are now 38-10 overall on the year and 18-8 in SEC play. The Hogs and Vols will enter tomorrow’s series finale tied atop the conference standings.
For the second day in a row, Arkansas spotted Tennessee a couple of runs in the first inning.
The Razorbacks’ deficit grew to three in the bottom of the fourth as Arkansas was kept scoreless through the first five innings of Saturday’s contest.
The comeback bid began in the sixth on Braydon Webb’s two-run shot to left. The outfielder’s fifth home run of the year brought the Hogs within one.
A few batters later, Christian Franklin hammered a no-doubter over the wall in left center. Franklin’s 11th blast of the season, punctuated by a magnificent bat flip, tied the ballgame at three.
Arkansas’ offense would not stop there. Jalen Battles doubled home Casey Opitz for the Razorbacks’ first lead of the afternoon before Webb dropped down a textbook RBI bunt single to extend the advantage to 5-3 in the seventh.
From there, the Razorbacks and Volunteers exchanged runs for the remainder of the game. Arkansas would enter the bottom of the ninth with a 7-5 lead, handing the ball to Jaxon Wiggins to close it out.
A leadoff bloop single and full-count walk set the stage for Tennessee’s dramatic finish. Volunteer second baseman Max Ferguson homered on the first pitch he saw for the 8-7 walk-off win.
Despite the loss, Caleb Bolden (3.1 IP) and Ryan Costeiu (1.1 IP) were strong in middle relief for the Hogs. The duo combined to strike out five, limiting the Volunteers to only two runs over 4 2/3 innings and allowing Arkansas to dig itself out of the early deficit.
The Razorbacks still have an opportunity to clinch their ninth straight SEC series in tomorrow’s finale at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
First pitch from Knoxville is set for noon Sunday on SEC Network+.
Van Horn after Hogs give up walk-off homer to Tennessee
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn wasn’t particularly pleased with losing a two-run lead on a walk-off home run against Jaxon Wiggins.
Early hole not too deep for Razorbacks in 6-5 win over Vols
Even the hole Patrick Wicklander found himself in after one inning wasn’t too deep for this Arkansas team to claw out to a 6-5 win in the first game against Tennessee on Friday night.
Vols radio announcer John Wilkerson had said on ESPN Arkansas’ Halftime on Friday afternoon this was the biggest series in the history of the program.
And after one inning Tennessee was leading 5-0 and appeared set to run it up higher.
But they couldn’t get another single run the rest of the way.
“It was a good win,” Dave Van Horn said later.
Wicklander started and had his worst outing in awhile, not making it out of the third inning. He gave up six hits, walked two and struck out just two.
“They did a good job against Wicklander and the zone was really tight tonight,” Van Horn said. “He got behind in the count and they did a good job. They were on the ball.”
The result was it appeared at times in the first inning a track meet had broken out on the bases.
Caden Monke came on, got out of the third inning and didn’t give up a hit over the next 3.1 innings. That helped.
The Hogs also got the offense going.
By the end of the third inning Robert Moore’s two-run homer got Arkansas on the board and Brady Slaven’s two-run homer in the third made it a one-run game in the third,5-4.
“Our offense was able to chip away with a couple of big two-run homers and just enough to get us back in it,” Van Horn said. “The middle of our order did a great job: Wallace, Slavens. Moore drove in three runs.”
Cayden Wallace’s single in the fifth tied the game and Monke wasn’t giving up anything. Then Kevin Kopps came in and even without his usual sharpness, managed to hold off any Tennessee rallies.
“The bullpen was outstanding,” he said.
It was Moore’s deep sacrifice fly to center in the eighth that scored Slavens with the winning run and Kopps managed to do enough with an unusual strike zone for the win.
The Hogs, now 38-9 on the regular season, also got some help in Starkville on Friday night with Missouri downing Mississippi State, 7-6.
Arkansas now has a 1.5-game lead over the Bulldogs in the SEC West and a 1-game lead over Tennessee for the top seed in the SEC Tournament in a couple of weeks.
The two teams will play again Saturday morning at 11 a.m.
Pregame coverage with Phil Elson starts at 10:30 a.m. and you can listen HERE or on radio at ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.
