HawgBeat's coverage of the Razorbacks' Road to Redemption in Omaha is brought to you by Arkansas Oral Surgery, which has offices located in Conway and Russellville.

FAYETTEVILLE — Back in the friendly confines of Baum-Walker Stadium, Arkansas bats finally got going again Friday afternoon.

Scoring their most runs in three weeks, the Razorbacks cranked out 13 hits in an 11-5 win over Central Connecticut State to advance to the winner’s bracket of the Fayetteville Regional.

Arkansas will now await the winner of the Cal-TCU game at 6 p.m. Friday, while the Blue Devils will play the loser of that game in an elimination game.

Back-to-back singles by Heston Kjerstad and Jack Kenley got things started for the Razorbacks in the second inning. They eventually scored on an RBI ground out by Casey Opitz and a wild pitch.

Central Connecticut actually cut its deficit in half in the fourth, as Chandler Debrosse’s line drive got past a stretching Casey Martin’s glove and Sam Loda hit a blooper than landed just inside the right field line.

That put runners on the corners and turned TT Bowens’ deep fly out to center into a sacrifice fly that made it 2-1. However, the Razorbacks immediately responded with a towering leadoff home run by Heston Kjerstad.

It wasn’t until the fifth inning that Arkansas really starting getting to Brandon Fox, the Blue Devils’ starter. After Trevor Ezell hit a single, he scored on a two-out double by Matt Goodheart that was nearly caught by Chris Kanios diving in center field.

Instead, the inning stayed alive and the Razorbacks tacked on a couple more runs with an RBI single by Dominic Fletcher and RBI double by Kjerstad. It might have been an even bigger inning had Kjerstad not been thrown out trying to stretch the double into a triple, but they had to settle for a 6-1 lead.

Meanwhile, Connor Noland was pitching really well for Arkansas. He retired the first nine batters of the game before the aforementioned hits in the fourth inning and then six straight before his defense failed him in the sixth.

Consecutive errors by Martin and Ezell put the first two guys on base before Noland retired Sam Loda. With the dangerous TT Bowens coming up, head coach Dave Van Horn turned to his bullpen.

Kevin Kopps induced a ground ball, but Martin committed his second error of the inning to allow a run to score. It took back-to-back strikeouts by Kopps to finally end the inning.

That was an unearned run charged to Noland, who gave up just the one earned run on two hits and now walks while striking out two in 5 1/3 innings.

Arkansas was never in much danger after that, as it added three runs in the sixth - thanks to RBI singles by Christian Franklin and Ezell and a throwing error - and a two-run homer by Ezell in the eighth.

Ezell finished the game 3 for 5 with three RBIs, while Kjerstad went 3 for 4 with two RBIs for the Razorbacks. Bowens was the star for Central Connecticut, as he notched all five RBIs, including an impressive three-run homer in the eighth off Marshall Denton.

The winner’s bracket game between Arkansas and the Cal-TCU winner is at 6 p.m. Saturday and the loser’s bracket game between the Blue Devils and the Cal-TCU winner is at noon. Television designations will be announced later in the day.

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