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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas got some Baum-Walker magic to pull off a Mother’s Day comeback in a critical rubber match Sunday afternoon.
Matt Goodheart and Jalen Battles homered to help erase a 3-0 deficit and Kevin Kopps took care of the rest in the Razorbacks’ 5-3 win over Georgia in Fayetteville.
It’s the 10th time Arkansas has dug out of a three-run hole this season and it came in a big spot. By winning Sunday, the Razorbacks remained perfect in weekend series and maintained their one-game lead in the SEC West with two weeks left in the regular season.
Making the rally even more impressive, it came with Georgia ace Ryan Webb on the mound. After a dominant four innings, he was tagged with four runs and chased in the seventh.
“We could feel it in the dugout that we were starting to get better swings on Webb there,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “I felt like when we tied it, it felt like we were going to win the game. When we were down one run, it felt like we were going to win the game, honestly.”
Arkansas pulled within 3-2 and stranded the tying run on third in the fifth, but Van Horn said he felt it was only a matter of time before his team tied it up and took control of the game.
Sure enough, in the very next inning, Goodheart crushed a two-out solo home run off the light pole in left-center. It was his team-leading 12th long ball of the season.
“He took a couple of borderline pitches and it was a 2-0 count and he got rewarded,” Van Horn said. “He got that fastball he was hunting and he didn’t miss it. It didn’t matter which way the wind was blowing - unless it was blowing in really hard - because that ball was crushed. I would say it was at least 450 (feet).”
In the seventh, Battles gave the Razorbacks their first lead of the day when he hit Webb’s 0-1 pitch to dead center. Ben Anderson gave chase and made a leading effort, but it easily cleared his glove for a leadoff home run.
Known more for his defense as a shortstop, it was Battles’ fourth home run of the season and his first in SEC play.
“I know the wind helped that ball a little bit but he put a good swing on it,” Van Horn said. “He hit it a little bit toward the end of the bat, but obviously it carried 400-plus.”
Christian Franklin provided an insurance run with a two-out RBI single later in the inning, which proved to be plenty of cushion for Arkansas.
Early Call to Kopps
Van Horn hoped to only need to use three pitchers Sunday and stuck with that plan even though Caleb Bolden and Caden Monke went just 2 1/3 innings apiece.
Trailing 3-0 with two outs, a runner on first and power-hitting Connor Tate coming to the plate, Arkansas turned to its ace reliever. Kopps had thrown 54 pitches in a three-inning save just two days earlier, but didn’t have to pitch Saturday and Van Horn felt he could throw another 60-70 pitches in the series finale.
“We were hoping to get him at least to maybe the sixth inning, but we had to bring him into the fifth with two outs,” Van Horn said. “We just felt like that hitter, right on left, wasn’t a good matchup, so we got Kevin. … We kind of knew that he had some pitches left in him.”
He got the job done to end the fifth, getting Tate to ground out, and then cruised through his next couple of innings.
Seven of the first Bulldogs he faced failed to reach, with the only exception being a two-out single by Chaney Rogers in the sixth. That came on a hard-hit ground ball that Battles could have fielded, but took a tough hop. It was initially ruled an error before getting changed to a hit.
Georgia put something together in the eighth, getting singles from Corey Collins and Garrett Blaylock sandwiched around a strikeout. Kopps ended the threat, though, by striking out Riley King and Rogers.
