UA has SEC lead halfway through
FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Razorbacks wore their camouflage baseball caps Saturday against Georgia as part of Military Appreciation Day at Baum Stadium.
“I like them,” Coach Dave Van Horn said of the caps the Razorbacks will wear just once this season. “They’re good for hunting.”
The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville is in the hunt for the SEC championship after beating Georgia 11-3 before an announced crowd of 7,233 to complete a three-game sweep of the Bulldogs.
Arkansas (29-8, 11-4 SEC) leads the conference overall standings midway through the 30-game schedule.
“It’s where you want to be, but we have 15 games left,” Van Horn said. “We’re not jumping for joy. We haven’t really talked about it.
“We’ve never mentioned where we are in the
standings to our players. No. 1, they know, and we just continue to try to go week by week.”
The Razorbacks won their only SEC outright championship in 1999 when they finished 22-8. They went 19-11 in 2004 to share the SEC title with Georgia.
“We’re only halfway there,” Van Horn said. “A lot of work to do.”
Arkansas did most of its work offensively Saturday in the second inning when it scored seven runs to take a 7-1 lead.
The Razorbacks had 10 batters in the inning and got six hits — highlighted by Chad Spanberger’s three-run home run — with the help of two throwing errors by the Bulldogs.
Georgia’s biggest miscue came on second baseman Will Proctor’s throwing error that put Grant Koch on third base and Jared Gates on second with no outs to start the inning.
“They made a mistake, and usually when that happens against us, there aren’t too many innings that will turn out well for the other team, because one through nine our lineup is pretty stacked,” said Arkansas outfielder Eric Cole, who singled in the seventh and was 3 for 5. “It’s fun when the bats get rolling, because everybody believes they’re going to go up there and get a hit.”
Georgia cut Arkansas’ lead to 7-2 in the top of the fourth inning and had runners at first and second base with one out when redshirt freshman righthander Kevin Kopps came in to pitch. Cam Shepherd hit a double play ground ball on Kopps’ first pitch.
“I threw a cutter,” Kopps said. “It feels good to throw one pitch for two outs.”
Van Horn said it was the pitch of the game.
“It looked like, hey, they’re going to be right back in this thing,” Van Horn said. “They’re going to score a
couple more with a lot of momentum.
“For Kevin to get that double play ball really threw the momentum back into our dugout.”
Kopps (2-0) went the final 5 innings and held the Bulldogs (15-22, 4-11) scoreless on 5 hits with 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. He threw 73 pitches, including 45 strikes, and was helped by three double plays.
“When he did make a mistake or walk somebody, he seemed to throw the perfect pitch and we turned those into double plays or outs,” Van Horn said. “I think the key was that he competed hard.
“He pitched with a lead, and he just threw a lot of strikes and said, ‘Hey, hit it.’ For the most part, we fielded it.”
The Razorbacks are off to their best start through 15 SEC games since going 12-3 in 2010. They also started 12-3 in 1999 and 11-4 in 2004 and 2007.
Arkansas has the SEC overall lead over West rivals Mississippi State (10-4) and Auburn (10-5) and East leader Kentucky (9-4 going into Saturday night’s game at Missouri).
“The first time we came into the locker room this year, our coaches talked about winning the West and sent us a list of every team that we had to beat,” Cole said. “So it’s been a goal since Day One. We’re on a good track for that right now.”
The Razorbacks finished last in the SEC in 2016 at 7-23.
“Last year was a bust,” Spanberger said. “This year we’re playing good, and we just need to keep going and doing our thing.”
Van Horn nodded when asked whether he would have taken an 11-4 start before the season.
“Yeah, I think any coach in the league would for the most part,” he said. “You never know how it’s going to go there.
“You see teams struggling like Georgia that has five or six players that anybody in the league would love to