Future of Arkansas baseball looks bright after solid campaign
FAYETTEVILLE - Compare the Arkansas Razorbacks’ baseball numbers for 2016 and 2017.
For after 2016, coach Dave Van Horn’s lone losing season in 15 at the Hogs helm going 26-29 overall and 7-23 in the SEC, the Hogs surged in 2017 to 45-19 overall and 18-11 for second in the SEC West plus runner-up in the SEC Tournament that the Razorbacks couldn’t even qualify to play in last year.
Of course the Razorbacks had long sacked the bats before last year’s NCAA regionals, but just finished this season runner-up to Missouri Valley Conference champion Missouri State in the Fayetteville Regional that Arkansas hosted.
Hard to imagine among the 16 four-team regionals that any could have been as well matched as at Fayetteville with host Arkansas seeded first, Missouri State second, Big 12 Tournament champion Oklahoma State third and Summit League champion Oral Roberts fourth.
Oklahoma State proved the weak link of the fourth, yet so strong to lead Missouri State 5-4 in the ninth of last Friday’s tournament opener until Bears shortstop Jeremy Eierman’s second home run of the game, a two-run walkoff, won it 6-5.
Eierman’s two-run home run in the sixth inning of Monday night’s championship game ultimately topped Arkansas 3-2.
Other than ORU’s 14-6 blowout of Oklahoma State in last Saturday’s loser bracket, and Arkansas’ 3-0 Trevor Stephan and Kevin Kopps shutout over ORU, every game was a one-run game.
Arkansas needed Chad Spanberger’s seventh-inning home run to break a 3-3 tie and edge ORU 4-3 in last Sunday’s rain delayed loser’s bracket final.
In its three games against Missouri State, the Razorbacks lost 5-4 last Saturday, won 11-10 the rain-delayed slugfest that started at 9:15 p.m. Sunday and ended at 3:10 a.m. Monday, and lost the championship game pitcher’s duel 3-2.
Missouri State and ORU never got to play each other, but no doubt that would have been to the wire, too.
“I was happy to be a No. 1 seed, but I think there were a couple of No. 1 seeds here,” Van Horn said after Monday night’s championship game loss. “I think Oral Roberts could have been a No. 1 seed. They’re as good as anybody here, in my opinion. It was a great regional. It was really competitive and one play here, one pitch there made a difference on who moves on. Hats off to Missouri State. We lost to a team that (during the regular season) won all but one conference game. They made all the plays. They made some great plays tonight.”
The great crashing-againstthe-wall catch by Missouri State center fielder Hunter Steinmetz robbing Arkansas catcher Grant Koch of a third-inning double before Jake Arledge walked and Eric Cole singles was about as vital to Missouri State as Eierman’s home run.
Both sides, using all recycled pitchers with Arkansas starting Kacey Murphy despite him throwing 74 pitches and 3 2-3 innings Sunday afternoon against Oral Roberts, and Missouri State starting Doug Still, who had pitched 5 1-3 innings Friday starting against Oklahoma State, played their guts out Monday night despite still exhausted from their night before into morning.
Everyone, including, even especially, the fans, gave it their all.
Van Horn marveled that so many Arkansas fans some arriving well before the scheduled 3 p.m. Sunday game against ORU that didn’t start until 5, still called the Hogs at Baum at 3:10 a.m.
“The crowd last night … was unbelievable,” Van Horn said after Monday night’s championship game. “At 1, 2, 3 in the morning. I felt like there was 10,000 people in the stands. It made you proud to be associated with Arkansas and to be their coach.”
And while of course the fans yearned for the Hogs to have prevailed Monday and proceeded to play national seed TCU in Fort Worth for the best two of three Super Regional now deciding whether Missouri State or TCU advances to be among the Elite Eight playing for the national championship at the College World Series in Omaha, these Hogs gave them more than their money’s worth.
Despite key seniors Jake Arledge, Josh Alberius and Dominic Taccolini departing and the likely imminent departures of big-time juniors Spanberger, Stephan, Luke Bonfield, Carson Shaddy, and 21-year old draft eligible sophomore Knight in the upcoming Major League draft, a nucleus returns for a season far more like 2017 than 2016.
Pitchers Evan Lee, also a hitter, Murphy, Kopps, Jake Reindl, Matt Cronin and Weston Rogers are among the returnees.
So are All-SEC catcher Koch, outfielders Cole and Dominic Fletcher, shortstop Jax Biggers, and third basemen Jack Kenley and Jared Gates and promising freshman reserve second baseman Jaxon Williams and freshman reserve first baseman Jordan McFarland.
Although Gates, a third baseman, is a draft eligible junior, he seems whole Hog into the Hogs for 2018.
“I think we were picked last in the SEC West so we had a lot to prove from Day 1 and we did a good job of proving people wrong,” Gates said. “Next year will be fun, too.”
(Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the NewsTimes.)