UA moves to 4-0 in Classic with pair of home victories
COLLEGE SOFTBALL
NO. 6 ARKANSAS 7, IOWA ST. 4 NO. 6 ARKANSAS 12, TAMU-CC 0
FAYETTEVILLE— A beautiful day in Northwest Arkansas brought the largest crowd to Bogle Park since opening day for the third day of the Wooo Pig Classic.
The sixth-ranked University of Arkansas softball team rewarded the 2,929 in attendance with a doubleheader sweep over Iowa State (74) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (12-0). It extended Arkansas’ win streak to eight games, and improved the Razorbacks to 4-0 in the tournament.
Callie Turner (5-0) was the starting pitcher for Arkansas (18-3) against Iowa State. She walked 2, allowed 4 runs and 1 hit, and fanned 5 batters over 71/3 innings.
“I felt like we controlled the game,” Arkansas Coach Courtney Deifel said. “They obviously got a little that first inning, I think we grabbed the momentum right back and never gave it up.”
In her first at bat, Kristina Foreman singled to third base for an RBI to score Reagan Johnson. A wild pitch in the second with the bases loaded paved the way for Atalyia Rijo to cross the plate, putting the Razorbacks up 3-1.
In the fourth, Raigan Kramer hit a three-run home run over center field to give Arkansas a 6-1 lead.
Rylin Hedgecock’s first hit of the game was a solo home run in the sixth, which was her fourth homer of the weekend at that point. Heading into the seventh, the Razorbacks led 7-1.
The seventh inning got sticky for Arkansas. A thread of fielding errors and unearned runs put the Cyclones behind 7-4.
“Fortunately we had the cushion,” Deifel said.”We were wanting Callie to roll and try to finish that out, and then we just got a little sloppy. I thought Hannah came in and did what we really needed her to do which was to continue to deal ground balls and get us out of it.”
Arkansas then run-ruled Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the second game in five innings.
“I thought we did really well,” Deifel said. “I thought we jumped on them early, I thought we kept pressure on them. It was one of those games where we put up a lot of runs, but not a lot of hits. We just took what they gave us.”