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Arkansas provided starting pitcher Hagen Smith with run support in the form of the long ball Saturday afternoon during a 10-1 win over Illinois-Chicago.
After the sky delivered a nice coating of snow Friday, the game being played was in question for a while. It took a group effort including players and coaches to get the field in playing condition.
“The game almost didn’t happen,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “(The grounds crew) were out working hard and then we joined in with them, a bunch of our pitchers, a few coaches and managers and it was kind of a good effort. Just a good effort. The field played great.”
With two outs in the bottom of the third, Razorback third baseman Cayden Wallace reached base on a throwing error by the UIC third baseman and followed it up with a delayed steal to second, his fourth of the season.
After catcher Michael Turner walked, left fielder Chris Lanzilli crushed his first homer as a Hog to deep left field to put the Hogs on the scoreboard. Two pitches later, right fielder Brady Slavens went back-to-back on a homer of his own to left field to extend the Razorback lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the third inning.
UIC finally tacked a run on the board when second baseman Clay Conn drilled a one-out solo homer to the left field bullpen. Smith followed it up with two quick outs to limit the scoring to one, but he had already hit triple digits and his day was done after five innings.
The Hog bats strung together a trifecta of lead off singles from freshmen Peyton Stovall, Max Soliz Jr. and redshirt junior Zack Gregory in the top of the sixth. Wallace then stepped up to the plate and demolished the Hogs’ first grand slam of the season to extend the Razorback lead to 8-1.
“I think we’re trying to do the little things, not worrying about putting the ball over the fence every time,” Wallace said. “We’re just trying to take our walks and get hit by pitches and bunt. I just think we’re really focused on the little things and I think as a whole we’re swinging it well.”
Turner raised his batting average to .405 on the season with a solo shot over the wall in right-center for the final run of the inning to make it an eight-point lead.
