Arkansas rallies late to take series opener from Mississippi State
BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON
FAYETTEVILLE – On a Friday night when Arkansas ace pitcher Hagen Smith was not quite his normal Superman self, Razorback relief pitcher Gage Wood arrived late to the party with a piece of kryptonite.
Wood entered the game in the ninth with the bases loaded and nobody out and promptly retired all three Mississippi State batters he faced to preserve No. 3 Arkansas’ 7-5 win.
“I just told myself that this is the moment that I dreamed about since I committed here and I’ve been in those positions before,” Wood said. “Tonight, I pulled through and we got it done. I was just listening to fastball middle from (catcher) Hudson White right here and it worked out.”
Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn praised Wood’s heroics.
“What I saw was somebody that just went out there and competed and just seemed to enjoy being out there in that type of situation,” Van Horn said. “I gave him the ball, I said, ‘hey, bases loaded, no outs. Have fun’. I walked off.
“I just tried to loosen him up a little bit. He just threw that high-spin, carry fastball and got a pop up. I don’t know, a strikeout and another pop up. He didn’t even throw a breaking ball.
“He threw a couple changeups. Really proud of him just going in there and kind of taking the bull by the horn, so to speak. He said, ‘okay, I’m the guy. I’m going to get it done’ and he did.”
Wehiwa Aloy’s run-scoring single tied it and White’s two-run single plated the go-ahead runs as the Razorbacks scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth to rally from a 5-4 deficit.
“Just a gritty win by our team,” Van Horn said. “…It was just a good win for our team on a night that honestly we didn’t play our best. So, proud of our guys.”
The rally delighted a crowd of 10,891 fans on fireworks night at Baum-Walker Stadium while also keeping Arkansas (40-9, 18-7) tied with Tennessee (41-9, 18-7) a game behind Kentucky in the SEC’s overall race.
Kentucky (36-10, 19-6) won a wild 12-11 game at Florida on Friday in which the Wildcats trailed 5-1 at one point.
The victory also extended the Razorbacks’ SEC Western lead to two games over Texas A&M (41-9, 16-9), who lost at Ole Miss 4-3 on Friday night.
“Our pitching has been so good all year,” Van Horn said. “We’ve talked about this, that this was going to happen and we would have to step up offensively and I thought we did a really good job tonight offensively.”
No. 14 Mississippi State (32-17, 14-11) was the SEC’s hottest team entering Friday night having won 10 of 12 contests.
“It was just a great ball game between two really good teams competing their tails off,” Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis said. “They made one more pitch or got one more hit than we did is what that game came down to.”
“I don’t fault our kids at all. Man, they are competing their tails off and played a really tough game against a good team and so did they. So like I said, they got one more swing than we did.”
It’s not as if Smith (9-0), whose team has won all 13 games he’s started this season, had a bad night.
He still went five innings while fanning 11, walking four and giving up three runs on four hits while throwing 94 pitches, 58 for strikes.
“He just didn’t have the command that he normally does,” Van Horn said. “We’ve kind of been waiting for it, honestly, because he’s been so good and so consistent. Maybe he’s got that behind him and he can move on now.
“He’s been better obviously, and he’s a lot better than that. But it was just that night and Mississippi State did a good job of fouling off some pitches and getting his count up.”
Smith now has a career strikeout total of 335 and is 10 away from tying Nick Schmidt (345) for most strikeouts in program history.
“It was great,” Lemonis said off his teams approach against Smith. “I thought (hitting) Coach (Jake) Gautreau) and our hitters, I mean that was the goal – to get Hagen Smith out early and to do some damage.
“I mean that guy is one of the best in college, probably the best pitcher in college baseball right now, to be honest with you.
“I don’t know that there is much better out there. If there is, then holy cow. That guy is really special. You are going to see him pitching in the big leagues soon.”
Mississippi State starter Khal Stephen went 7 innings, allowing four runs on six hits, having a run-scoring wild pitch and not issuing a free pass.
“He did a great job, kept us in the ballgame,” Mississippi State Hunter Hines said. “Once again, they are a great team, but so are we. The game was just how I thought it was going to be. A close nail-biter all the way to the end.”
Arkansas took a 1-0 in the fourth inning when Jared Sprague-Lott scored on a wild pitch and increased that to 3-0 on Hudson White’s two-run blast in the fifth.
But Hines tied the game 3-3 in the top of the fifth when he drilled a Smith offering into the right field corner for a bases-loaded, bases-clearing double.
“He’s been so locked in, especially left on left,” Lemonis said of Hines. “I think Hagen Smith had given up four hits all year to left handers and I thought Hunter stood in there and had some really good swings all night long.”
Sprague-Lott’s sixth-inning solo homer, his seventh blast of the season, put Arkansas 4-3.
It stayed that way until the eighth when Mississippi State sent eight batters to the plate against Arkansas closer Gabe Gaeckle, who gave up a trio of runs despite not allowing a hit.
Gaeckle, who fanned the two batters he faced in the seventh to escape a bases-loaded situation, walked a trio, hit a batter, and gave up a sacrifice fly in the frame.
“We got him (Smith) out early and then they brought in their best guys,” Hines said. “We put up five runs on their best pitchers. We thought going into the eighth we had it, but that’s baseball and they are a great team.
Will McEntire (4-0) got the final out of the eighth and recorded the win, but loaded the bases in ninth before Wood came to the rescue.
Wood has had several good outings lately after struggling earlier in the season.
“It is a mindset,” Wood said. “When things weren’t going my way I didn’t have the confidence and I had games I did well where I wasn’t that confident but I tried to fake it through and not let the other team know that.
“Everyone is going to have those thoughts in their head but that’s really what separates the good from the great. Not that I’m great or anything but tonight I feel my mindset switched and I was just going to get out and execute and tonight things went my way.”
White was 3 of 4 with four RBIs on the night, including the big hit against Mississippi State reliever Tyson Hardin.
Hardin had not allowed an earned run since Feb. 24 and none in SEC action.
The two teams will square off again Saturday night at 6 on SEC Network + and then Sunday at 2 p.m on the SEC Network.
Photo by John D. James
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