Spanberger’s HR, relief lift Hogs
FAYETTEVILLE — Chad Spanberger broke the Arkansas Razorbacks’ home run drought in dramatic fashion Sunday at Baum Stadium.
The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville had been the only team in its NCAA regional without a home run before Spanberger pulled a 3-2 pitch from Trevor McCutchin over the right-field fence with two outs in the top of the seventh inning to break a tie game and help lift the Razorbacks to a 4-3 victory over Oral Roberts University.
The Razorbacks (44-18) stayed alive in the regional and advanced to play Missouri State (42-17) late Saturday night. Arkansas needed a victory in that game to force a deciding game today.
Arkansas came into the regional with 80 home runs — including 10 in five games in the SEC Tournament last week — to rank 11th nationally.
But the Razorbacks went 24 2/3 innings before hitting a home run in the regional.
Spanberger, a left-handed hitting junior first baseman, fouled off two 3-2 pitches before putting the Razorbacks ahead 4-3 with his 20th home run.
“That guy can hit,” Oral Roberts Coach Ryan Folmar said. “That was a great at-bat.”
Spanberger hit a slider from the left-hander McCutchin.
“I think Trevor’s pitch all year long has been his breaking ball, so we were going best on best and Spanberger won the battle,” Folmar said. “That’s a really good hitter that’s big and strong.
“He’s scary guy when he comes to the plate because every time he makes a swing he’s got a chance to lose one.”
Spanberger’s home run cleared the visiting bullpen.
“He got a breaking ball he could handle and got about every bit of it,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said.
Arkansas has not gone more than two consecutive games without hitting a home run and has hit at least one in 43 of 62 games.
Van Horn was asked if he felt a sense of relief seeing a Razorback — Spanberger in particular — hit a home run.
“Obviously, the main thing is not who hit it, it’s that it gave us the lead and gave us an opportunity to try to find a way to get nine more outs with a lead,” Van Horn said. “And I just thought our pitchers did a great job.
“But bottom line, we hit it and we needed it. Missouri State guys were hitting home runs last night and Oral Roberts got the lead on us with home runs today.
“They were kind of doing what we’ve been doing to people, building up leads by hitting some home runs and it was nice to get one.”
Arkansas relief pitchers Josh Alberius (3-4) and Jake Reindl (third save) combined to hold Oral Roberts (43-16) scoreless over the final 5 1/3 innings.
“They located everything,” Golden Eagles first baseman Brent Williams said. “They threw their sliders for strikes, which I think was a big benefit for them.”
Alberius replaced starter Kacey Murphy with two outs in the fourth inning and went 3 scoreless innings while holding the Golden Eagles to 2 hits and 1 walk with 3 strikeouts.
Reindl retired all seven batters he faced and struck out Sam Grellner to end the game.
“I thought Josh came in and gave us some quality innings after Kacey gave us three-plus,” Van Horn said. “Then we went to Jake and he baffled them a little bit.”
Folmar said Arkansas’ bullpen was the difference because Oral Roberts only trailed by a run going into the bottom of the seventh inning.
“It’s a solo home run,” Folmar said of Spanberger’s shot. “We’ve got nine outs to go at that point. We felt really good with where we were at.
“You’ve got to tip your cap to the back of their bullpen. Those bullpen guys were good with 5 1/3 innings, 2 hits and a walk. That’s not a lot of opportunities to score.”
Arkansas scored three runs in the top of the fifth inning to tie the game 3-3 and knock out Oral Roberts starter Justin McGregor.
Jared Gates and Grant Koch singled with one out. Jake Arledge hit an RBI double and Eric Cole followed with a two-run double.
The Golden Eagles took a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning, including home runs by Noah Cummings and Williams on consecutive pitches off Murphy and Grellner’s RBI single.
“Just a really good college baseball game,” Van Horn said. “I thought both teams pitched extremely well.
“They put together a big three-run inning, then we did a great job of answering and matching those three runs in our next at-bat.
“It ended up coming down to a battle between a left-handed pitcher and a left-handed hitter.”