Hogs start quickly, end Starkville skid
NO. 2 ARKANSAS 8, NO. 4 MISSISSIPPI STATE 2
MITCHELL GLADSTONE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
STARKVILLE, Miss. — It had been more than five years since a game between two of the SEC’s baseball perennial powers had gone the road team’s way.
That streak ended Friday night.
No. 2 Arkansas belted its way to its first victory at Starkville since March 29, 2014, belting three first-inning home runs to top No. 4 Mississippi State 8-2 at Dudy Noble Field.
Center fielder Christian Franklin, who launched the third of the solo home runs in the opening inning, added another in the fourth to make it 4-0, and junior lefthander Patrick Wicklander turned in a solid outing in his first weekend start of the season.
“It was the first road SEC series and we wanted to come out and make a statement,” Franklin said. “We knew the environment that we were going to be getting into, so we just needed to stick to what we know and be ourselves and play with a little chip on our shoulder.”
Replacing Peyton Pallette in the rotation after throwing 5 1/3 innings in relief last weekend against
Alabama, Wicklander limited the Bulldogs to 1 run on 2 hits over 5 innings as he worked his way around base runners in each of the first four innings.
Wicklander lowered his ERA to 2.33 as he kept Mississippi State hitless until the bottom of the fifth, but he escaped without further damage, striking out threehole hitter Tanner Allen on a nasty breaking ball to end his night.
“We didn’t get one last Friday, so this felt really, really good,” Coach Dave Van Horn said, referring to the Razorbacks’ 16-1 loss to Alabama last Friday. “I think there were about 12,000 fans here tonight and Wicklander gave us a really good outing.”
Arkansas (17-3, 3-1 SEC) didn’t wait long to get the bats going against Bulldogs ace Christian MacLeod, who entered the weekend with a 1.74 ERA and threw six innings of one-run ball at LSU last Friday.
After leadoff man Braydon Webb struck out, designated hitter Matt Goodheart launched a 3-2 pitch over the right-field bleachers to open the scoring. Cayden Wallace then followed with a solo home run, sneaking it just beyond the wall in left center to give the Hogs a 2-0 lead.
Three pitches later, Franklin smashed an opposite-field liner onto the right-field plaza, making it 3-0 and giving Wicklander all the cushion he’d need.
“I think the stuff was a little down today [and MacLeod] just wasn’t as sharp as he was last weekend,” Mississippi State Coach Chris Lemonis said. “When you’re not sharp and you don’t make pitches to good hitters, that’s what happens.”
With Wicklander cruising, Arkansas had a chance to break things open in the fourth. Franklin smashed a second solo shot into the left field corner to give the Razorbacks a 4-0 lead before a pair of walks sandwiched around a Casey Opitz single loaded the bases with no outs.
But Jalen Battles ran Arkansas into a double play trying to tag up from first on Robert Moore’s sacrifice fly, and Bulldogs reliever Stone Simmons struck out Webb to keep the deficit at 5-0.
Mississippi State (17-5, 2-2) finally got on the board with Rowdey Jordan’s RBI single in the fifth before Pallette came on in relief of Wicklander to start the sixth inning.
Pallette began with three scoreless innings, holding the Bulldogs hitless on 26 pitches — 22 for strikes — before allowing a run on two hits in the bottom of the ninth.
“[Peyton] was really upset with himself last week,” Van Horn said of Pallette, who gave up four earned runs in one inning of work against Alabama a week ago. “He was just too amped up for the game and he was trying to find out all week if he was going to get to start tonight.
“We told him we were going to bring him in right after [Wicklander] … and he did a tremendous job. He gave us an opportunity to save our pitchers for the rest of the games because obviously, we’re going to need them all.”
Goodheart and junior Brady Slavens added RBI singles in the seventh, stretching Arkansas’ lead to 7-1. The Hogs added a final run in the ninth when Slavens singled to drive in Webb, who had reached on an error.
The Razorbacks will have the chance to claim a series victory today at 2 p.m. Senior right-hander Zebulon Vermillion is scheduled to start for Arkansas, which will look to win a series in Starkville for the first time since 2012.
No road team has won a weekend series between Arkansas and Mississippi State since 2012, and the home team swept the four previous series between 2016-19.
“It’s such a long season, it’s such a grind, you just try to grab a win whenever you can,” Van Horn said of his team’s first victory at Starkville in seven years. “But it was good to win here because we had an opportunity to watch these guys three times to open the season in Arlington and they were really impressive, so we knew what we were getting into here.”