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 — Arkansas had its chances, but couldn’t dig out of an early hole and punch its ticket to the College World Series.
After falling behind by six runs in the first two innings, the Razorbacks came up empty in a couple of critical situations and fell to Ole Miss 13-5 to force the if-necessary Game 3 at the Fayetteville Super Regional on Monday.
Playing as the road team, Arkansas took advantage of a defensive mistake in the first inning. Casey Martin hit a popup in the infield that fell between the first and second basemen. Two batters later, Dominic Fletcher crushed a two-run home run with two outs.
Much like the Razorbacks did in Game 1, though, Ole Miss answered immediately. After Thomas Dillard singled to start the inning and Grae Kessinger was hit by a pitch, Cole Zabowski launched a three-run home run over the right field bullpen to put the Rebels on top.
Starter Connor Noland settled down and retired the next two batters to get out of the first, but his second pitch of the second inning was hit by Cooper Johnson for a leadoff home run.
That chased the freshman and forced Arkansas to bring in Kole Ramage from the bullpen. He walked four of the first six batters he faced, with the other two being a botched double play and triple by Tyler Keenan that got away from Fletcher and cleared the bases.
Before Ramage got out of it, he gave up an RBI fielder’s choice ground out to Ryan Olenek that made it 8-2. Despite posting a 1.58 ERA over his last eight appearances, Noland was charged with four earned runs in one inning.
Arkansas threatened in the third by loading the bases, but Heston Kjerstad struck out looking and Jack Kenley popped out. The strikeout of Kjerstad was Doug Nikhazy’s 82nd of the season, breaking the Ole Miss freshman record previously held by Jeff Calhoun (1977) and Drew Pomeranz (2008).
Three straight RBI doubles by Trevor Ezell, Martin and Matt Goodheart with two outs in the fourth actually cut the Rebels’ lead in half, but the Razorbacks wasted another opportunity the next inning.
With runners on second and third in the fifth, Nikhazy struck out pinch hitter Zack Plunkett on his 108th pitch of the game to get out of another jam. That was the end of the day for the freshman left-hander, who gave up five earned runs on a season-high 10 hits and one walk while striking out eight.
Despite getting his pitch count up and out of the game early, Arkansas still couldn’t do much over the final four innings. Houston Roth gave up just two hits to close it out and improve the Rebels’ bullpen ERA against Arkansas to 2.42 this season.
Ole Miss tacked on three more runs in the sixth and two in the seventh, highlighted by home runs by Keenan and Kessinger. The four home runs hit by the Rebels were their most since hitting six against UAPB on March 20.
The winner-take-all Game 3 is scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday and will be another showdown of freshman pitchers. Arkansas is starting left-hander Patrick Wicklander (6-2, 4.29 ERA) against Ole Miss right-hander Gunnar Hoglund (3-2, 4.64 ERA). It will be televised on ESPN2.
If the Razorbacks win, they’ll advance to the College World Series for the 10th time in school history, but it would be their first time making it in back-to-back years. If the Rebels win, it would be their sixth trip to Omaha and the second under head coach Mike Bianco.
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