DVH saved ace Knight’s innings for postseason
Those eighth, seventh and even sixth innings Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn did not let starter Blaine Knight pitch, even as he seemed to be in an early season rhythm, perhaps allowed him to pitch eight complete innings Friday in 92-degree heat.
The junior right-hander from Bryant, now 11-0 with a 2.74 ERA, threw a three-hitter and led Arkansas (40-18) to a 10-2 win over the Tulsa-based Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (38-19) on a feverish Friday afternoon before almost 9,000 fans at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville. Reliever Cody Scroggins took over in the ninth inning to complete the win to open the Fayetteville Regional.
Van Horn was asked after the game if some of those late inning Knight did not pitch in February, March and April factored in him pitching through eight innings of summer heat.
“There’s probably four or five games where we got him in the sixth or seventh,” Van Horn said. “And when I went out there he would say, ‘I’ve got another inning in me. I’m fine.’ I would always comment, ‘We’re going to need that later.’ He knew what I meant.”
A strong bullpen with Matt Cronin, Jake Reindl and, from midseason on, Barrett Loseke made it easier for Van Horn to remove Knight with innings to go and games not necessarily secured.
“You never know how it’s going to go,” Van Horn said. “But we have confidence in our bullpen. We felt like we were going to get to a regional one way or another and wanted him to be as strong as he could be. I would say the way he threw today, I’d say it definitely helped.”
Knight’s outing was padded by Arkansas’ 14 hits and 10 runs, including four runs. The result enabled Van Horn to keep his top reliever fresh going into the winner’s bracket on Saturday against Southern Mississippi
(44-16), champion of Conference USA. The Southern Miss Golden Eagles, seeded second to Southeastern Conference West division co-champion Arkansas, drilled Dallas Baptist (40-20),
9-0, Friday night in the second game of the four-team double-elimination regional.
Dallas Baptist defeated Oral Roberts, 18-9, Saturday afternoon in the loser’s bracket. Oral Roberts was eliminated with the loss.
A second elimination game will be held this afternoon between Dallas Baptist and the loser of Saturday night’s game between Arkansas and Southern Miss. The winner of the afternoon game will meet last night’s winner in a potential championship game tonight. A winnertake-all final game would be held Monday if necessary.
“We won’t know how big it was until this thing gets into a couple more games and what happens with our pitching,” Van Horn said. “But we may be talking again that that he set the tone and gave us a chance to have enough pitching to get through it or whatever happens.”
Biggers’ big break
A .338 hitter last year but often slumping in the early and midseason this year, junior shortstop Jax Biggers seems to have put a finger on what’s wrong since coming back from missing six games with a broken finger.
Biggers went 3-for-6 upon his return in Arkansas’ final two games at last week’s 2018 SEC Baseball Tournament in Hoover, Ala. Against Oral Roberts, he went 2-for-4.
Biggers prefaced the first of freshman left fielder Heston Kjerstad’s two two-run homers against Oral Roberts with a leadoff single, batting ninth, and then hit a two-run home run of his own.
“I kind of kidded with him the other day,” Van Horn said. “If I’d known you were going to swing the bat this good we would have smashed your finger a long time ago.’ He’s swinging the bat now like he did last year. And I think he just needed a little time mentally to get away and be off to the side and realize, ‘It’s not as hard as I’m making it out to be in my mind.’
“He got three hits in Hoover in six official at-bats, a couple walks and then, today, I think he singled and homered. Just doing a good job I think of trying to shoot the ball through the middle. His swing seemed a little shorter to me, and him hitting a home run today into a light breeze, I wasn’t expecting that at all. It’s been good to see that. It’s been pretty impressive.”