Democrat-Gazette writer Tom Murphy said Arkansas has “just patched it together” mainly with pitching in piling up victories.
Bud Light Seltzer Morning Rush Podcast – Series win in Columbia
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Missouri hands Hogs first back-to-back losses of season, 10-1
Missouri handed Arkansas back-to-back losses for the first time all season, as it won game two of a three-game series, 10-1, at Bogle Park on Sunday afternoon.
Seniors Kayla Green and Aly Manzo recorded the Razorbacks’ only two hits of the day.
How it happened
Missouri scored first in the top of the second inning on a solo home run, and Arkansas evened the score in the bottom half of the inning on catcher Green’s solo home run to left, her 11th of the season.
The Tigers added another single tally in the third and never looked back, scoring a single run in the fourth before striking for five in the sixth and two in the seventh.
Jenna Bloom (8-2) worked the first 4.0 innings allowing three earned runs on seven hits with a strikeout.
Freshmen arms Allie Light and Lauren Howell combined to finish the final 3.0 frames and allowed seven runs, however, only three were earned.
Laurin Krings (7-2) picked up the win in relief for Mizzou, tossing 5.1 hitless innings with five strikeouts.
The Tigers outhit Arkansas, 11-2, with Manzo singling in the second to record the team’s only other hit. Infielder Hannah Gammill and designated player Linnie Malkin also reached on a walk and a hit by pitch, respectively.
Before the game, the Razorbacks honored their nine seniors: Braxton Burnside, Nicole Duncan, Lauren Graves, Kayla Green, Keely Huffine, Ryan Jackson, Aly Manzo, Autumn Storms and Sydney Parr (graduated in 2020).
Arkansas plays the Bogle Park regular season finale at 6 p.m. tomorrow, April 26 against Missouri on SEC Network.
Keeping spring momentum with long break Pittman’s concern
After an incredibly busy month and a half everything has slowed down to a crawl around Arkansas sports over the weekend.
It’s a big change for Dave Van Horn, who wasn’t really sure exactly how he was going to handle the long break especially after Missouri State canceled a midweek game due to covid issues.
There’s no way of knowing how badly that frustrated the Bears, but Van Horn wasn’t exactly thrilled with the development, especially playing two games at South Carolina and ending up with a Saturday AND Sunday off for the first time in awhile.
He’ll figure it out. Van Horn is the best college baseball coach in the country, so fans should have zero worries there.
Sam Pittman is probably the one having to deal with the biggest potential headaches. His players will have some light conditioning requests but are pretty much on their own until late May.
“We can’t make them, but certainly would like them to,” Pittman said after last week’s concluding spring scrimmage. “I expect them to.”
To be honest, that’s probably not a concern. Dealing with the NCAA’s answer to free agency in the ongoing effort to hang onto some degree of control over million-dollar businesses being run by 18-22 year-olds creates bigger pains for coaches.
Arkansas lost a couple of more last week and the only people who really know aren’t talking so it is what it is. While the Hogs may have some players that would be difficult to replace in my opinion, those two weren’t on the list.
Pittman has the most number of people to deal with and there are some communities in Arkansas with less people than he has to oversee.
He finally got a full spring practice after not even seeing his team on the field due to the covid thing. That will only be a positive.
They have been asked to do some weight-lifting to stay in shape and get a couple of weeks off to go home. They won’t really be back on campus until probably the last full week of May in what has turned into a year-round deal.
Keeping spring momentum is what every coach wants to see.
“We didn’t have a bad practice and we moved forward each day,” Pittman said summarizing the spring last week. “We got better.”
Now that has to continue in a conference where it’s hard to advance because the other teams have scholarship players and get better, too.
Pittman is confident.
“We’ll continue to get better just because of the character of the kids we have on our team,” he said.
And that’s the hope heading into a crucial month.
Hogs can’t keep early lead, falling to Missouri in series opener
Danielle Gibson’s first inning three-run home run gave No. 6 Arkansas an early lead, but it wasn’t enough against Missouri on Saturday.
The Razorbacks (37-6, 16-3 SEC) fell to No. 19 Missouri, 6-3, in the series opener on Saturday afternoon at Bogle Park.
How it happened
Infielder Braxton Burnside and outfielder Hannah McEwen both walked in front of Gibson, setting up her 14th home run of the season in the first inning.
The Tigers (33-10, 11-5 SEC) then scored the game’s final six runs and plated three in the top of the third, tying the game. Infielder Jenna Laird recorded an RBI single to center and outfielder Casidy Chaumont drove in two on a double to left center.
On Gibson’s double to left center with two outs in the bottom of the third, a Razorback runner was thrown out at the plate, and Missouri’s Kendyll Bailey took the momentum from her defense and hit a solo home run in the top of the fourth to grab a 4-3 lead.
The Tigers scored single tallies in the sixth and seventh frames widening their lead.
Arkansas pitcher Mary Haff (20-4) worked 5.0 innings and allowed five runs on six hits and four walks while striking out six.
One earned run was charged to relief pitcher Jenna Bloom over her 2.0 innings. Jordan Weber (9-2) registered the win for Missouri, tossing 4.2 innings and allowing three runs on two hits and four walks with two strikeouts.
Emma Nichols (7) worked a clean 2.1 innings of relief, notching a save.
The Tigers outhit Arkansas, 9-2, holding the Razorbacks to a season-low in hits. Gibson recorded both hits, and each went for extra bases.
The two teams will meet for the middle game of the series at 3 p.m. tomorrow, April 25 on SEC Network. Arkansas will honor its nine seniors before the game.
Van Horn on strong pitching in series-winning third game
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The only team that hasn’t lost a series in SEC play this season? The Arkansas Razorbacks.
The unanimously top-ranked Hogs only needed two days to clinch their sixth conference series win of the year, splitting Friday’s doubleheader against No. 11 South Carolina to improve to 32-7 overall on the season.
Arkansas dropped the day’s first game, 6-2, before picking up a 5-1 victory in the nightcap at Founders Park to secure the series win.
Arkansas, in sole possession of first place in the SEC West, is now 13-5 in league action for the year.
The Hogs return to action next weekend in Baton Rouge, La. Arkansas’ series at LSU gets underway at 6 p.m. Friday, April 30, on the SEC Network.
To no one’s surprise, lawsuit with Bielema settles in middle
Bret Bielema is back in college as a head coach and apparently he was willing to settle in the middle to get rid of a lawsuit in Arkansas, we found out Friday.
It was the last vestige of Jeff Long’s stupidity in doing contracts with no adult supervision and the Razorback Foundation was probably glad to cut the check for slightly over $3.5 million which is about half of what he was due.
Bielema obviously didn’t want to deal with anymore. After all that (assuming both sides in the lawsuits have to pay their own attorneys), he’ll probably end up with less than $1 million in the bank (don’t forget taxes).
It really doesn’t matter.
He was hired as the head coach at Illinois just a couple of weeks after his buyout period with the Hogs ended and they are paying him $4.2 million a year to try and pull that program out of the ditch in the Big Ten.
None of that matters to Razorback fans, of course.
The Foundation quit paying Bielema in December 2019 after it became clear he didn’t have a whole lot of interest in pursuing a decent job to offset what he was getting from Arkansas.
They had a pretty good argument for breach of contract that required him to at least try to do something other than be Bill Belichick’s errand boy in New England. It was a typical business move that forced Bielema to get some lawyers involved.
After a 31-7 win over Texas in Houston at the Texas Bowl, a giddy Long gave a .500 coach a six-year contract extension with a ridiculous buy-out amount.
At the time I said that was the dumbest thing I’d ever seen done with a contract at the UA. By rewarding mediocrity, Long set the program on a path they haven’t dug out of since, compounding the problem with two years of Chad Morris.
But now all of that is over. Bielema didn’t need any distractions with the task he’s got ahead of him in Illinois.
So everybody wished everybody the best of luck in the future although the truth is neither side really cares what the other does.
But both sides can claim a win.
The lawyers wouldn’t have it any other way.
Torres: Hogs bring up memories of Calipari’s second year
Fox Sports Radio’s Aaron Torres said Eric Musselman’s situation reminds him of John Calipari’s second season with Wildcats on expectations.
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Moore after pair of homers hoping ill grandfather enjoyed it
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Robert Moore let his bat do the talking.
Heckled by a rowdy crowd all night long at Founders Park, Arkansas second baseman responded with two home runs, including the game-winning two-run blast in the seventh, powering the top-ranked Razorbacks to a 6-1 series-opening win against No. 11 South Carolina on Thursday evening.
Four Hog pitchers came together in the win to twirl Arkansas’ fourth two-hitter of the season. Caleb Bolden, Ryan Costeiu, Caden Monke and Kevin Kopps combined to allow one run on two hits and four walks while striking out 10 total.
The unanimously top-ranked Hogs improve to 31-6 overall, including 12-4 in conference play, on the year with the victory. Arkansas, in sole possession of first place in the SEC West, now leads second-place Mississippi State by 1.5 games.
