College students, get a year of HawgBeat coverage for just $11.95! Request details via email from your school account (.edu) to andrewhutchinson413 (at) gmail (dot) com.
FAYETTEVILLE — It wasn’t easy, but Arkansas escaped Opening Weekend with a series win by pulling out a tight victory in Sunday’s rubber match with Illinois State.
Clutch hitting with two outs helped the Razorbacks overcome an early deficit and keyed their 4-2 win over the Redbirds at Baum-Walker Stadium.
After losing its first season opener since 1994 on Friday, Arkansas responded with back-to-back wins to avoid its first non-conference series loss on a weekend since 2014.
“I told the team this before Illinois State arrived down here, that we were playing a veteran team that had three veteran pitchers who were going to fill up the zone and they weren’t going to beat themselves,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “We were going to have to beat them. We didn’t beat them on Friday and the last two days we had to go get them.”
Illinois State starter Derek Salata cruised through the first three innings on just 34 pitches, but Arkansas finally got to him in the fourth.
Robert Moore got things started with a leadoff double and Brady Slavens moved him to third with a single. That put runners on the corners and, with two outs, Van Horn said he was worried they might waste another scoring opportunity, but Zack Gregory came through with an RBI single.
“We were looking for that spark and Gregory started it off for us and (we) wanted to keep it rolling, keep it rolling,” Slavens said. “I think as the season goes on, as we play more with each other, we’re going to get it rolling and start stacking the at bats.”
Even though they couldn’t push across any more runs that inning and just tied the game at 1-1, the Razorbacks made Salata throw 27 pitches. That set the stage for another productive inning in the fifth, especially after Jaxon Wiggins quickly retired the Redbirds in order to get his teammates back up to the plate.
Five of the seven batters Salata faced that inning reached base, including Moore on an intentional walk immediately before back-to-back two-out RBI singles by Chris Lanzilli and Slavens to make it 3-1.
“I thought it was great that Wiggins went back out in the top of the fifth and had a quick inning,” Van Horn said. “Got us back in the dugout and sure enough, we score two more runs and had an opportunity to really bust it open, but at least we saw a lot of pitches again and got into their bullpen.”
Illinois State managed to cut that deficit in half with a leadoff home run by preseason All-MVC selection Ryan Cermak in the eighth, but Arkansas got it back on Jalen Battles’ RBI double in the bottom half of the inning.
After going just 3 for 21 (.143) with runners in scoring position over the first two games and the first three innings of Sunday’s game, the Razorbacks ended the weekend by going 5 for 13 (.385) in those situations in their final five innings.
Here are several other key takeaways from Arkansas’ Game 3 victory…
Wiggins Works Deep
Getting the nod in the series finale, sophomore Jaxon Wiggins gave the Razorbacks five strong innings. The right-hander allowed only one earned run on five hits and two walks while striking out five.
The only blemish on Wiggins’ stat line came in the second inning and it could be argued that it wasn’t really on him. He did give up back-to-back singles to start the inning, but a wild pitch that could have been scored a passed ball allowed the runners to move to second and third.
When Nick Gile followed with a ground ball to shortstop, it resulted in an RBI fielder’s choice rather than a potential double play. Instead of the inning ending on the ensuing fly out and the game being scoreless, Arkansas found itself in a 1-0 hole.
Wiggins also worked out of jams in the third and fourth innings while never unraveling.
“I thought Wiggins did a really nice job throwing the ball over the plate and he worked out of a jam and that was big to see,” Van Horn said. “They hit him a little bit, but he didn’t let it bother him. There’s always things to work on, but overall, I thought he did a nice job.”
