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.
It was not a pleasant day for baseball, but Arkansas did just enough to open the Round Rock Classic with a win Friday evening.
Playing in frigid temperatures and with a stiff wind blowing straight in, the No. 6 Razorbacks scratched across three runs in the fourth to carry themselves to a 5-2 win over Indiana at Dell Diamond in Round Rock, Texas.
Brady Slavens jump-started the big inning with a double and Michael Turner immediately drove him in with an RBI triple to make it 2-0. Arkansas ended up loading the bases and scored two more on a bases-loaded walk and an error, but eventually stranded three with a chance to blow the game open.
“We, again, were one swing away from that knockout blow,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “Coach (Nate) Thompson and I talked about it after the game where, I think they made a bad throw, we scored our last run pulling the first baseman off the bag, but we were one hit away. … There's a lot more to come.”
Even though the conditions were not favorable for home runs, which Arkansas led the country in last season, it still did damage with extra-base hits.
In addition to turning Slavens’ fourth-inning double into a run, the Razorbacks also did that in the first and seventh innings. Both of the other two-baggers were provided by Cayden Wallace and each time, he was driven in by a Robert Moore single.
“Obviously we had a couple of balls in knocked down tonight that definitely would have went out of the park,” Van Horn said. “It was a tough night to hit. I thought we did a good job of just taking what we could get.”
Here are a few other key takeaways from Friday’s win over Indiana…
Noland Shines in 2nd Start
In his first start as the Razorbacks’ “ace,” Connor Noland gave up two runs before recording his second out of the season last week against Illinois State.
Van Horn said afterward that he thought nerves were a factor, but the senior right-hander corrected his coach Friday and said it was more to do with him being too amped up and trying to throw too hard. That wasn’t the face his second time out.
Coming out with a much calmer and more “mellow” mentality, Noland scattered five hits and two walks while allowing only one earned run and striking out 10 in six innings against the Hoosiers.
“I thought he pitched great, especially with the elements,” Van Horn said. “I thought he threw some good fastballs as well. I thought he pitched ahead in the count all night. When he did get behind he found a way to fight back. I thought he just had a great outing.”
