Blame game over
Last year’s heartbreaking ending at Baum in the past for Razorbacks.
FAYETTEVILLE — The winding road of a long baseball season has taken the national No. 5 seed Arkansas Razorbacks back to Baum Stadium today for their first postseason game since the heartbreak of June 5.
Arkansas (39-18) will host Oral Roberts (38-18) at 2 p.m. today in the projected mid-90s heat for the first game of the double-elimination NCAA Fayetteville Regional.
Regional No. 2 seed Southern Miss (43-16), the Conference USA regular season and tournament champion, will face No. 3 seed Dallas Baptist (40-19), the Missouri Valley regular season and tournament runner-up, in the 7 p.m. game.
Baum Stadium is where the Razorbacks trudged off the field 361 days ago having been eliminated 3-2 by Missouri State, hours after completing a rain-plagued, back-and-forth 11-10 victory over the Bears after 3 a.m.
The Razorbacks admit they were eyeballing a super regional against TCU last year before taking care of business against the Bears, and they’re vowing it won’t happen again.
“Our thing is to just go out and play hard and try to take it an inning at a time and not look down the road because last year we looked down the road a little bit and there was no road,” said Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn, who has guided the Razorbacks to their 15th NCAA regional in his 16th season.
“Last year shouldn’t have ended like it ended,” said junior right-hander Blaine Knight (10-0, 2.78 ERA), who is scheduled to face Oral Roberts right-hander Justin McGregor (6-1, 2.56) today.
“You can blame it on the rain and having to turn around that next day after … we went to bed at 5 in the morning. You can blame it on a lot of stuff, but it still shouldn’t have happened.”
Arkansas sophomore outfielder Dominic Fletcher said the sting of the loss at home provides “a ton” of motivation.
“It’s not a good feeling when you host and you come out here and get beat on your home field,” Fletcher said.
“I think that plays a big role in our mentality this week and how we’re going to play,” senior second baseman Carson Shaddy said. “No one wants what we did last year to happen, so we’ve all seen it and we’ve seen the mistakes. It’s time to learn from the mistakes and get out of this regional.”
The Razorbacks were 30-8 in home games last season. This year, they’re a program-best 30-3 at home, including 29-3 at Baum Stadium.
“It’s just big being in this ballpark again and in front of these fans,” senior outfielder Luke Bonfield said. “I think we play really well in this ballpark. We’re feeling really confident that we’ll have a different outcome this time.”
Oral Roberts Coach Ryan Folmar made the decision to start McGregor today against
the Razorbacks over lefthander Miguel Ausua and right-hander Josh McMinn.
“He’s been really consistent all year long,” Folmar said. “I think you look back at last year and he started every Friday night for us. He’s pitched in a lot of different roles on a lot of different days. We just felt good with Justin walking out here in game one.”
McGregor shut the Razorbacks out for 4 innings before leaving in the fifth having allowed 3 earned runs on 7 hits in the Golden Eagles’ season-ending 4-3 loss at Arkansas on June 4.
“We’ve been here before,” McGregor said. “We’re not going to get shocked whenever this place is full and everyone’s against us.”
Sending Knight, Arkansas’ unbeaten ace, to the mound for the regional opener was a show of respect, Van Horn said. Some had speculated the Razorbacks might hold Knight back for a Saturday start behind left-hander Kacey Murphy, as Arkansas did at the SEC Tournament last week.
“Respect and not looking past anybody,” Van Horn said. “Oral Roberts is a great team, very well coached and they have a lot of players back from last year. They know how to win.
“We were thinking Blaine all along unless something changed, like he wasn’t ready to go because he threw behind Murphy in the tournament. When he felt good to go it was a done deal.”
Knight charted the Golden Eagles in last year’s regional opener, a 3-0 victory for Arkansas behind right-hander Trevor Stephan.
“What I saw last year was they could swing it and Trevor did a great job of holding them down,” Knight said. “I don’t think they have as much power as they did last year, but they’re going to be a gap-togap team. They’re going to be an action team, hit and run and stuff like that is what I’m expecting.”