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Arkansas couldn’t quite pull off a double comeback Saturday and instead split a doubleheader with Ole Miss.
After rallying from a 3-0 deficit to win the first game 7-3, the Razorbacks failed to completely dig out of a pair of five-run holes and lost the nightcap 13-6 to the Rebels at Swayze Field in Oxford, Miss.
With each team winning a game, Arkansas (25-5) and Ole Miss (24-7) remain tied atop the SEC West standings at 8-3.
“It’s been a long day,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “I’m proud of the guys that played hard all day. We did a great job the first game coming back, fighting off a lot of pitches, finally getting a lead.
“In the second game, we got off to another slow start, down 5-0, then we came firing back. … We were one big hit away from breaking that thing wide open, or tying it or getting the lead.”
Here’s a recap of both games, as well as a few other notes from the day…
Game 1: Arkansas 7, Ole Miss 3
The Rebels jumped out to an early 3-0 lead behind some clutch hitting in the opening game of the series Saturday afternoon.
It looked like Arkansas starter Patrick Wicklander had strike three on Hayden Dunhurst to end a scoreless first inning, but the pitch was called a ball. The Ole Miss catcher made him pay by hitting a two-run double down the right field line a few pitches later to start the scoring.
In the third inning, the Rebels added to their lead thanks to a one-out double by Peyton Chatagnier that was followed by an RBI single by Kevin Graham. Despite loading the bases, that was all they’d get because Wicklander struck out TJ McCants and Cael Baker.
Arkansas, meanwhile, couldn’t get anything going offensively against Ole Miss ace Gunnar Hoglund. The right-hander and potential first-round pick scattered four walks and eight strikeouts across five hitless innings before getting knocked out of the game in the sixth.
Although the Razorbacks didn’t have any hits over that span, they did manage to run up his pitch count to 95. It was a leadoff single by Matt Goodheart on Hoglund’s 100th pitch of the game that broke up the no-hitter.
“He was throwing a pretty good slider and keeping the fastball away from us, but what we did is we fouled off a lot of pitches,” Van Horn said. “We got deep into counts, 2-2 counts, 3-2 counts, foul ball, foul ball. … There were a lot of at-bats like that, that got his pitch count up and really frustrated him. We were glad to see him get out of there.”
Ole Miss stuck with its ace, though, and - after a Brady Slavens walk - Christian Franklin broke up the shutout and chased Hoglund from the game with an RBI single up the middle.
A passed ball moved the tying runs into scoring position and Casey Opitz nearly tied it up with a double down the left field line, but it was just foul. That was part of a lengthy nine-pitch at bat in which he fouled off four of Jackson Kimbrell’s pitches before ultimately flying out to deep left for a sacrifice fly that pulled the Razorbacks within 3-2.
“That was a great at bat,” Van Horn said. “You could see that he was getting more confidence with every pitch and their pitcher was getting more frustrated with every pitch he had to throw. … That was a tough at bat. He chewed up a lot of pitches there and frustrated him a little bit.”
Franklin was able to tag up to third on the play, too, which set up Zack Gregory’s game-tying RBI bloop single.
After failing to capitalize on a bases-loaded situation in the sixth, Ole Miss saw Arkansas take its first lead in the seventh on a bases-loaded walk by Franklin. Then a wild pitch brought in another run.
The Razorbacks put together a two-out rally in the eighth for some insurance, as Robert Moore drew a walk, Goodheart singled and Cayden Wallace drove them in with a double.
Game 2: Ole Miss 13, Arkansas 6
Just as it did in the opener, Ole Miss pounced on Arkansas early. This time, it was back-to-back singles by Jacob Gonzalez and Chatagnier to lead off the game that hurt the Razorbacks.
They came around to score on RBI singles by Dunhurst and McCants, but it could have been much worse. Franklin left his feet to make a spectacular diving catch that ended the inning and robbed Hayden Leatherwood of a hit. If the ball got by him, two runs likely would have scored and Leatherwood might have ended up at third.
He did eventually add to the Rebels’ lead, though, launching a three-run home run with two outs in the third to make it 5-0.
It seemed like Ole Miss would follow the big hit by throwing up another zero in the fourth, as he got a couple of strikeouts and then induced a high pop up by Wallace. However, third baseman Justin Bench dropped the pop up.
The error sparked a two-out rally in which Dylan Leach and Opitz - playing first base - hit RBI singles and that added another 13 pitches to Nikhazy’s pitch count.
Ole Miss pushed its lead back to five an inning later, with Ben Van Cleve and Gonzalez delivering RBI singles off left-handed reliever Zack Morris.
Not quite digging out of that early hole proved to be the theme of the nightcap.
Graham made a diving catch in left to rob Opitz and limit the Razorbacks’ damage to only two runs - on an RBI single by Jalen Battles and wild pitch - in the seventh and they left the bases loaded in the eighth after Franklin led off the inning with an opposite-field home run, and Wallace was stranded on second after an RBI double in the eighth.
Arkansas scored all six of its runs between the fourth and eighth innings, but also stranded 10 runners - including seven in scoring position - during that stretch and never got closer than a two-run margin.
The Rebels finally blew it open in the bottom of the eighth, with their first five hitters reaching base and scoring against reliever Kole Ramage. The right-hander gave Arkansas two solid innings before his eighth-inning meltdown, which started with an error by Moore and then featured four straight hits.
"We had a couple guys down there,” Van Horn said. “Once they popped in a run or two, we felt like we weren't going to eat anybody up that we needed to save for tomorrow, basically. It's pretty obvious that's what we were doing."
Another Rally
They came up short in the second game, but the Razorbacks did pull off another comeback in Game 1. It was the ninth time Arkansas has won a game it trailed by at least three runs this season.
“We felt like we were in the game once we coiled back a little bit (and) kept it to three runs,” Van Horn said. “We knew we could strike for three pretty quick. … Credit to the team. They can win no matter what the score was. I don't think getting three or four runs down bothers us a bit.”
Most of the magic has happened in the sixth inning. In fact, the Razorbacks have now scored 46 runs in that frame - five more than any other inning. That accounts for 20.4 percent of their total scoring this season.
