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FAYETTEVILLE — Having already given up four straight hits, Blake Adams found himself in a battle with Dalton Doyle in the third inning of his collegiate debut Sunday afternoon.

With a full count, the Eastern Illinois third baseman fouled off consecutive pitches before grounding a breaking ball to Casey Martin at shortstop to start an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

It was the freshman right-hander’s final pitch of the game, but it ended his day on a high note because the tying runs were on base as he faced a bases-loaded, one-out jam.

“That was a big pitch, a big play for him,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “At the high school level, a lot of times that ball goes into left field or they might get one out of it. He was pretty excited that we turned a double play right there.”

Although his final line - two earned runs on six hits and one walk with two strikeouts in three innings - wasn’t as impressive as the Razorbacks’ first starters, Adams did enough to turn a lead over to the bullpen - which took it the rest of the way to a 12-3 win that completed a sweep of the Panthers.

Adams has plenty of experience pitching at Baum-Walker Stadium, starting three state championship games for Springdale Har-Ber and coming out of the bullpen in Arkansas’ fall scrimmage against Oklahoma, but Sunday marked the first time he did so in a real game for the Razorbacks.

Leading up to the season, Adams - whose family has had season tickets his whole life - told HawgBeat that it was a moment he’d been dreaming of since he was 8 years old. Catcher Casey Opitz kind of picked up on that during warmups.

“I could tell he was a little nervous in the pen,” Opitz said. “It was his first time out here. He’s been dreaming about this since he was younger, I’m sure.”

Those nerves didn’t seem to bother him in the first inning, though. He needed just 11 pitches to retire the Panthers in order, something Connor Noland and Patrick Wicklander failed to do in the first two games.

It looked like he was going to breeze through the second, as well, but he ran into some trouble against the bottom of Eastern Illinois’ lineup. Van Horn said Adams had a hard time landing his breaking ball, so the Panthers were able to sit on his 92, 93 mile per hour fastball and they made him pay.

After a couple of outs sandwiched around a walk, Adams gave up back-to-back singles - the last of which was an RBI single by Keith Kerrigan on a full count to cut Arkansas’ lead to 2-1.

“He came out and he was pumped up, and he threw hard, threw strikes, got through the (first) inning on a few pitches,” Van Horn said. “Then he got a little bit wild, which he hasn’t been wild this year too much for us.”

Adams retired the Panthers’ leadoff man to start the third inning, but proceeded to give up four straight singles. Matt Mackey had the third hit of the inning, an RBI that pulled Eastern Illinois within 5-2, and then Ryan Knernschield followed with a hit that loaded the bases.

The double play ball by Doyle came on Adams’ 53rd pitch of the game and while junior Kole Ramage was getting hot in the bullpen. Despite being well short of the predetermined pitch limit of 70-75, Van Horn did tell reporters he might get him early - after 50-60 pitches - if he ran into trouble and consistently had to work out of the stretch.

That’s what happened, as Ramage replaced him to start the fourth and earned the win with two scoreless innings of relief. However, neither Van Horn nor Opitz sounded too concerned about the short outing.

“He’s going to be good for us this year,” Opitz said about Adams. “He’ll be able to go longer throughout the season. It’s fun to be back there with him.”

The only other freshman to see the mound on opening weekend was right-hander Peyton Pallette. The Benton, Ark., native pitched the final inning of Saturday’s 10-1 win, throwing 16 pitches and giving up the lone run of the game on two hits. He notched the first strikeout of his career to end the game.

With the upcoming series against Gonzaga being four games, there’s a good chance another freshman or two makes his debut this weekend. Game 1 against the Bulldogs is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday and will be streamed on SEC Network-plus.