Razorbacks End Missouri State Misery with Eight-Run Eighth Inning

Arkansas flipped a 4-4 tie into a 12-4 blowout with an eight-run eighth that finally closed the Missouri State chapter.

Arkansas Razorbacks Maika Niu against Missouri State. | Arkansas Communications

There's a version of this story where Dave Van Horn's Arkansas Razorbacks let a midweek midseason game against a Conference USA opponent linger in the back of their minds for weeks.

There's a version where the 15-14 loss in 10 innings to Missouri State from earlier in the season becomes a talking point at the wrong moment down the stretch.

Tuesday night at Baum-Walker Stadium, the No. 24 Hogs made sure neither of those versions gets written as anything but a sidebar to the main story Tuesday night.

Arkansas turned a 4-4 tie into a 12-4 victory with eight runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, picking up its first win over the Bears since 2024 and handing Missouri State its most lopsided defeat of what had been a pretty impressive season.

Tuesday Night W 🐗 pic.twitter.com/imOH3iK2TU

— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) April 22, 2026

The Bears came into the night 26-11 with a 14-4 record in Conference USA, sitting 16 spots above the Razorbacks in the RPI.

That made it a legitimate Quad 1 opportunity at home, and the Hogs didn't waste it.

The win moved Arkansas to 27-15 overall and 9-9 in SEC play. It wasn't a clean performance by any means as the Razorbacks were held scoreless through five innings, left runners stranded repeatedly and watched leads evaporate twice.

It was the kind of character win that teams look back on when the brackets comes out in late May.

Starter Who Couldn't Be Figured Out

Brock Lucas made Arkansas look ordinary for most of the night.

The Missouri State right-hander delivered five shutout innings, retiring the Razorbacks with relative comfort even when the Hogs managed to put runners on base.

Through the fifth, Arkansas had left multiple baserunners stranded, including a leadoff single from Kuhio Aloy in the fifth that went absolutely nowhere.

Tate McGuire was working through his own trouble on the other end.

The Arkansas starter struck out four consecutive Bears hitters at one point but ran into his biggest problems in the fourth inning. Back-to-back singles from Carter Bergman and Jax Ryan put Missouri State ahead 2-0 and McGuire was pulled after 3⅔ innings of work after giving up six hits and two runs.

POMP PUMP 💪 pic.twitter.com/n0GUm1GMXM

— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) April 22, 2026

Colin Fisher stepped in and looked like a different pitcher than the one who'd struggled earlier in the season.

He delivered 3⅓ innings of essentially clean work against a potent Bears lineup, allowing two hits and one unearned run while punching out five batters.

It was the kind of outing that gives a coaching staff options going forward into a busy SEC stretch.

The Razorbacks finally cracked the scoreboard in the sixth inning, and they did it without clean baseball.

A throwing error by Missouri State shortstop Logan Fyffe allowed Ryder Helfrick to reach safely, and the Bears then compounded that mistake when second baseman Bryce Cermenelli's throw also went awry.

Helfrick scored on the sequence. Kuhio Aloy flew out to right-center to tie it and push Nolan Souza home. Then Zack Stewart came around to score on a wild pitch to give Arkansas a 3-2 lead with three runs on one hit.

A Lead That Kept Slipping

The Razorbacks couldn't hold that 3-2 edge.

Camden Kozeal's homer to right-center in the bottom of the seventh gave the Hogs a 4-3 lead, only for Missouri State's Curry Sutherland to answer with a 410-foot blast to left field in the top of the eighth that knotted it back up at four.

Just like that, Baum-Walker Stadium was back to square one.

It's worth understanding what Sutherland's homer could have done to the atmosphere of the night. The Bears had now answered every Arkansas punch.

They'd already beaten the Hogs once by a single run in extra innings. They were the better RPI team.

Giving up that tying shot in the eighth in a game that had gone back and forth all night is the kind of moment that can deflate a crowd and a dugout.

It didn't.

14th of the year for America's Catcher 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/OpxyKvSCdJ

— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) April 22, 2026

What happened in the bottom of the eighth is something Arkansas fans will talk about for a while.

Reese Robinett lined the first pitch he saw to left field for a double. Aloy singled to shortstop.

Then came a moment that told you something about where this team's head is at right now. Maika Niu, who hadn't laid down a sacrifice bunt all season in four tries, dropped one perfectly to move both runners into scoring position with one out.

It's a small detail in a big inning, but it mattered.

Carter Rutenbar then singled through a drawn-in infield to score two. Kozeal doubled down the line and scored Rutenbar.

Helfrick launched a three-run homer. TJ Pompey, who'd come in as a defensive replacement, followed with a homer of his own to left field. Eight runs. One inning. Game over.

RUTY! RUTY! RUTY! pic.twitter.com/gpNW5qmhJK

— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) April 22, 2026

Rutenbar, Helfrick Driving Offense That Keeps Finding Ways

Rutenbar has quietly become one of the most reliable run producers on this roster in pressure situations.

His two-run single in the eighth pushed his average to .370 with runners in scoring position this season, which ranks second on the team.

It wasn't a lucky squibber or a cheaply-earned hit, fighting through a drawn-in infield that was trying to cut off the lead run and found the gap between first and second.

Helfrick, meanwhile, hit his 14th home run of the season with the three-run shot in the eighth, extending his team lead in that category back to three over the next closest Razorback.

Camden Kozeal and Pompey each chipped in two RBI of their own. Kozeal and Nolan Souza each went 3-for-5 at the plate as the Arkansas lineup piled up 14 hits on the night after looking stuck for most of the game's first half.

That's what the Hogs do and it's what Van Horn has built. The Razorbacks don't always look clean. They don't always get contributions from the people you expect.

They do seem to find a way to put crooked numbers on the board when it matters and Tuesday night's eighth inning was as clean of a demonstration as anything you'll find anywhere in college baseball right now.

Resume Gets a Little Better Before Trip to Columbia

From a positioning standpoint, what Arkansas did Tuesday carries weight.

Missouri State came in as a team sitting comfortably above the Razorbacks in the national rankings metrics. Beating a team like that at home is the kind of résumé line that NCAA Tournament selection committees pay attention to.

The Hogs still have work to do.

They came in at 9-9 in SEC play, which isn't where any program in Fayetteville wants to be in late April.

Arkansas heads north Thursday for a three-game SEC series at Missouri, with junior left-hander Hunter Dietz projected as the Game 1 starter against the Tigers' Josh McDevitt. That series tips at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.