Red Wolf baseball reaches SBC semis

STATESBORO, Ga. — Arkansas State got 8 2/3 innings of onerun baseball from its bullpen and used a three-run seventh inning to beat No. 2 seed Texas-Arlington 4-2 Friday in the Sun Belt Conference tournament.

The Red Wolves (28-26) play No. 3 seed South Alabama at 2 p.m. today in the semifinals. It’s the team’s fifth consecutive SBC-tournament semifinal appearance, with the Red Wolves the only team to win at least two games in the tournament in each of the last eight years.

Grant Hawkins’ sacrifice fly broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh after Drew Tipton lined a double off the glove of third baseman Brady Cox. Garrett Rucker’s looping line drove scored another run, and Joe Schrimpf’s fly ball to right dropped in for an RBI triple.

Texas Arlington made it 4-2 in the eighth on Quintin Rohrbaugh’s sacrifice fly before Tyler Zuber struck out Noah Vaughan to end the inning.

Texas-Arlington loaded the bases in the bottom of the first with one out on a single and two walks, scoring the game’s first run on a bases-loaded walk before Arkansas State starter Peyton Culbertson was pulled. Tyler Mitzel struck out the first batter he faced and got a pop-up to escape the jam.

Arkansas State tied it in the second on an RBI single by Derek Birginske after a leadoff double by Alex Howard and Jake Bakamus was hit by a pitch.

Zuber (6-1) went 3 2/3 innings, allowing one run on two hits with one walk and six strikeouts. Mitzel tossed five shutout innings, allowing one hit with one walk and one strikeout.

Arkansas State crushed No. 10 seed Georgia State 21-4 Thursday. The Red Wolves’ current five-game winning streak began with a 5-0 victory over Southeastern Conference member Ole Miss at Jonesboro. Arkansas State lost two out of three to South Alabama at home in April.

Three UA vaulters advance to nationals

AUSTIN, Texas — For the fourth consecutive year, Arkansas’ women’s track-and-field team has advanced three pole vaulters through the NCAA West preliminary meet to the NCAA outdoor championships.

Desiree Freier and twin sisters Lexi and Tori Weeks were three of 10 athletes clearing 14 feet, 1 1/4 inches, qualifying for the NCAA outdoor meet June 7-10 in Eugene, Ore. Twenty-three vaulters cleared 13 feet, 9 1/4 inches in Austin.

“The conditions were great,” Arkansas women’s vault coach Bryan Compton said. “That’s one of the reasons everyone was able to jump so high in the whole group. We had 23 girls over 139, so it was a tough competition. For them 14-1 is not that big of a deal, with Lexi and Tori having

15-feet PRs (personal records) and Desi with 14-5; for them that bar should be easy and I think that’s the approach they took to just get it done.”

Lexi Weeks is the reigning NCAA outdoor champion and a two-time SEC outdoor champion, three-time All-American and

2016 NCAA indoor champion and

2016 U.S. Olympian. Tori Weeks is reigning SEC indoor champion and SEC outdoor runner-up and three-time All-American. Tori is the 2017 SEC indoor scholar-athlete of the year, she and Lexi maintining 4.0 grade points at UA while majoring in chemistry.