HawgBeat's coverage of the Razorbacks' Road to Redemption in Omaha is brought to you by Arkansas Oral Surgery, which has offices located in Conway and Russellville.

FAYETTEVILLE — Asked about it several times at the SEC Tournament, Dave Van Horn maintained that he wasn’t too concerned about his team’s offensive struggles. The Razorbacks just needed to get back home and relax a few days.

That proved prophetic as Arkansas racked up 13 hits in an 11-5 win over Central Connecticut State in the first game of the Fayetteville Regional, highlighted by a pair of 400-foot blasts by Heston Kjerstad and Trevor Ezell.

It was the most runs the Razorbacks had scored since their series-clinching win over LSU three weeks ago. In between, they averaged just 2.9 runs over seven games.

“A lot of people had said we had struggled when we went out on the road at (Texas) A&M and the SEC Tournament, but at the end of the day that’s baseball for you,” Kjerstad said. “Your offense isn’t going to be hot every game of the year.”

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of Arkansas’ win Friday night was that it went 5 for 9 (.556) with runners in scoring position, driving in six runs with those hits. In their previous seven games, the Razorbacks hit an abysmal .138 in those situations.

“We showed signs of breaking out today,” Van Horn said. “We put together some good swings. I was just glad to see us drive in some runs because that had been a bit of an issue.”

Arkansas’ overall numbers weren’t much better, as it slashed .199/.275/.333 as a team and struck out in 30.3 percent of its at bats.

Playing a team like Central Connecticut probably helped jump start the offense, too. The Blue Devils strike out the 10th fewest batters per nine innings (5.8) in the country and rank in the top 40 nationally in fewest walks allowed per nine innings (3.4), meaning they pound the strike zone and pitch to contact.

“They’re not the fifth-ranked team in the country for no reason,” Central Connecticut head coach Charlie Hickey said. “We just had to have balls hit at us, but they were aggressive and they got up there and took advantage of some counts.”

It was a stressful outing for right-hander Brandon Fox, who had a respectable 3.95 ERA as the Blue Devils’ No. 2 starter coming into the game. However, Arkansas tagged him for six earned runs

“I definitely had to mix a lot because if I threw too many of the same pitch in a row they were going to cheat to it and jump all over it,” Fox said. “I know they were cold in the SEC Tournament, but they came out ready to play today. They were aggressive and they hit some good pitches.

“I couldn’t take a pitch off because they would capitalize on it. A lineup with that depth is tough. You’ve just got to grind through it, grind through it.”

The two biggest swings of the day belonged to Kjerstad and Ezell, who also had three-hit days.

Kjerstad’s was a towering shot to center to lead off the fourth inning, immediately after the Blue Devils had cut the Razorbacks’ lead in half. He also had single through the right side and a double into the right-center gap that landed on the warning track and he tried to stretch into a triple.

With a 3-for-4 performance, Kjerstad improved his batting average to .336 and tied Casey Martin for the team lead with 15 homers.

“I thought he did a really good job of laying off some low pitches early,” Van Horn said. “He was just being a little more selective and not going out of the zone after a lot of pitches when he got behind. That was really good to see.”

Ezell’s was the cherry on top, as he crushed a 2-2 over the seats behind the right field bullpen for a two-run home run in the eighth inning. It capped a 3-for-5, three-RBI day for the first baseman and is something Van Horn hopes can carry over to Saturday.

“He hit that with two strikes,” Van Horn said. “He didn’t over-swing and the ball jumped when he hit it. It gets a little bit contagious.”

Despite the offensive outburst, Van Horn said he was never fully comfortable with Arkansas’ lead throughout the day. That made him especially glad the team came through with several timely hits.

“We felt like we needed to keep scoring and just a good job by the team kind of getting it going better offensively,” Van Horn said. “We only left four runners on base today so we got some big hits and we did a nice job of getting them around and scoring.”

The Razorbacks also did it without a huge inning, scoring no more than three runs in any one frame. They hit that total in the fifth and sixth, but also benefited from a wild pitch and error during the game.

Because of that, it never seemed like Arkansas put together a long rally, so the 13 hits piled up steadily and somewhat quietly.

“I just looked at it and for a second there, I thought we had controlled them,” Hickey said. “At the end of the day, you look like, ‘Alright, he had three hits, next guy had three hits.’ That’s what good teams are. They constantly put you under the gun pressure wise.”

Arkansas will face the Cal-TCU winner in a non-elimination game at 6 p.m. Saturday. The television/live stream information is not yet available.