Diamond Hogs rally again to win home opener, stay undefeated

FAYETTEVILLE — For the third time in four games, Arkansas needed some late-inning heroics to pull out a victory Thursday evening.

After scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth to force extras, Jalen Battles drove in the game-winning on an infield single in the 10th to lift the Razorbacks to a 6-5 win over Southeast Missouri State.

Arkansas avoided its first home-opening loss since 1994 and improved to 4-0, with three of the wins coming despite trailing entering the eighth inning or later. It also beat Texas Tech and TCU that way on opening weekend.

“It's like anything else, once you've done it, you get that experience and you can do it,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “I know in the ninth inning, the guys in the dugout were rallying and talking and it was loud in there.

“It wasn't like we were just waiting to get the game over, we felt like we had a chance to come back and win. Obviously that's what happened. Just proud of them because they kept fighting."

Thursday’s rally didn’t come without drama. The fate of the game twice rested on replay review in a wild ninth inning, with the each possibly resulting in a different team winning.

Down to their final two outs, the Razorbacks pulled within two on an RBI single by Battles. That brought the top of the order up and Robert Moore - who was hitless with six strikeouts in his previous 13 at bats - launched a high fly ball to right field.

Noah Jacobsen, a defensive replacement, made a leaping effort at the wall, but couldn’t come down with it. The ball appeared to hit the yellow line at the top of the fence and then came back into the field of play.

It was ruled a single and none of the runners were able to score because they had to hold up to see if it would be caught. However, the way the ball bounced back into play made Arkansas believe it was a home run.

“There's a net back there now, but the ball just reacted really strange,” Van Horn said. “We've seen it hit maybe 1-2 times in practice, where it's come off the net a little different if it just barely gets out, so we thought it might have been out.”

After a review, the play stood as called. Had it been overturned, Moore would have been credited with a walk-off home run. Instead, it was up to his teammates to deliver with the bases loaded.

Christian Franklin followed with a walk to drive in a run and make it a one run game and then Cullen Smith hit a shallow fly ball to left field. It was deep enough for Battles to tag up from third and he scored easily to tie the game.

At first glance, though, it seemed like he may have left before the ball was caught and SEMO appealed the play. He was ruled safe, but it once again went to replay and was once again upheld.

“We knew it was really close,” Van Horn said. “We didn't know which way it was going to go, honestly. We're fortunate that they didn't see that he left early."

Had that call been overturned, Battles would have been the third out and the Redhawks would have escaped with a Game 1 victory. Perhaps the only person at Baum-Walker Stadium who wasn’t nervous during the review was Battles, who said he was confident he didn’t leave early.

“I knew I was on the bag,” Battles said. “My foot was on the bag, but I already started moving forward, so that’s why it looked like it was close. But I was on the bag.”

In the 10th inning, Casey Opitz got things started with a one-out double that hit the right field wall on one hop and Cayden Wallace followed with an epic 14-pitch at bat.

After fouling off 10 pitches, the freshman finally took ball four to put runners on first and second.

“Just a really tough at-bat in a really tough situation,” Van Horn said. “His previous at-bat, he really hit a ball well down the third base line and the third baseman made a tremendous play on it. That cost him a double, and he didn't let it bother him too much. When he got another opportunity to try and win a game right there, he just fought and fought and fought."

That led to SEMO bringing in a new reliever and Blake Cisneros promptly hit Zack Gregory with the first pitch he threw to load the bases and bring up Battles in a clutch spot again.

Against a drawn-in infield on the edge of the grass, he hit a chopper that deflected off Cisneros’ glove and into no-man’s land, allowing the game-winning run to score and giving Battles a walk-off infield single.

Disastrous 1st inning

It would be difficult to draw up a worse first inning for Arkansas.

After holding Texas hitless for four innings on Sunday, right-hander Caleb Bolden got the nod in Game 1. Unfortunately for the Razorbacks, he wasn’t nearly as effective against SEMO as he was the Longhorns.

Bolden put three of the first four batters on base via free passes - two walks and a hit by pitch and then the first hit he allowed in 2021 was a line drive RBI single by Lincoln Andrews.

That gave the Redhawks a 1-0 lead and chased Bolden after just 27 pitches, only 14 of which were strikes. Going up against their ace, Van Horn decided to roll the dice with Bolden despite him having only three days rest, and it proved to be a bad gamble.