Arkansas squanders 11-0 lead, still wins wild rubber match at Ole Miss

After squandering a massive lead, Arkansas managed to find a way to pull off a wild rubber match victory Sunday afternoon.

The Razorbacks scored the first 11 runs of the game, but saw their lead completely evaporate before escaping Oxford, Miss., with an 18-14 win over Ole Miss at Swayze Field.

It was a critical result for Arkansas, which took over sole possession of first place in the SEC West and moved into a three-way tie with Tennessee and Vanderbilt for the top overall spot in the conference. It will also likely be the consensus No. 1 team in college baseball after the Commodores lost their series with Georgia.

“Gosh, you don’t want to play a 4-hour, 25-minute game and lose and come all the way home on a bus,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “It’s going to make that trip a lot better. Tomorrow when we wake up, we’ll probably think about this a little bit and how we hung in there and found a way to win two out of three down here.”

Following a three-run the seventh inning in which Ole Miss tied the game at 14-14, erasing what had been an 11-0 and 14-6 deficit, Arkansas immediately struck back.

Despite going hitless in his first five at bats and facing the Rebels’ closer, Brady Slavens delivered the game-winning hit with two outs in the eighth. His double to deep right-center drove in two runs off Taylor Broadway and gave the Razorbacks the lead for good.

“He didn’t have a good day yesterday and he was 0 for 5 today,” Van Horn said. “It just wasn’t going real good, but it just reminded me - because we’ve talked about this before - it’s not what you’ve done before, you’ve got to stay positive.”

Christian Franklin added an RBI single in the next at bat and then an Ole Miss error on a sacrifice bunt by Braydon Webb tacked on another insurance run in the ninth.

That created the final score, as the Razorbacks hung on with consecutive scoreless innings from Kevin Kopps to close out the game.

“It was a roller coaster to say the least,” Van Horn said. “It’s baseball sometimes, it gets a little bit out of control. Just glad we punched in that last field goal and got that lead up there a little bit. I’m telling you, it’s crazy.”

Reversing the Trend

Since sweeping Mississippi State, Arkansas has taken several innings to get going offensively, as its opponent scored first in each of the last five games. Over that span, the Razorbacks hit just .125 in the first five innings and .345 from the sixth inning on, according to UA radio play-by-play man Phil Elson.

Although they came up empty in the first inning Sunday, Arkansas quickly flipped the switch by jumping all over Ole Miss starter Derek Diamond in the second.

The Razorbacks’ first five batters reached base and scored, with Cullen Smith - in his first at bat of the weekend - crushing a three-run home run to center and Braydon Webb - who came into the game hitting just .138 - hitting a two-run dinger to left.

That made it 5-0 and was the start of an impressive showing by the bottom third of Arkansas’ lineup, which consisted of Smith, Jalen Battles and Webb, as well as a late pinch hit by Jacob Nesbit. That group went a combined 7 for 9 with eight walks, seven RBIs and 10 runs.