Power, Aloy, Come Alive to Jolt Razorbacks Over UCA
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Highly touted in the fall, Arkansas' Wehiva Aloy was scuffling, hitting under .200 with a team-high 11 strikeouts, but with Arkansas down 2-0 in the bottom of the third, Aloy uncorked a 442-foot grand slam to the Hog Pen for his first homer in a Razorback uniform to lead the Hogs to a 9-7 win over the Central Arkansas Bears.
"Pretty much exactly the type of game I thought it was gonna be," coach Dave Van Horn said. "[I] thought it’d be wild, it’d be tight. They’ve played some good teams this year and they’ve played a lot of people close."
An error and two walks set the inning up before the Sacramento State transfer finally got a hold of a 79-mile-an-hour pitch from Bryce Parlin and doubled his season RBI total with one swing from four to eight.
It felt good being able to put runs on the board after we were down by two," Aloy said. "I just kept it simple and I just drove the ball. Fortunately, it went over the wall. That at-bat, I was sitting soft, swung, and missed through the first one. The second one, I pretty much just reacted to it."
Kendall Diggs and Hudson Polk walked to set up another big bomb to dead center, this time off the bat of Ben McLaughlin. The Razorbacks scored seven runs in the third with the benefit of just two hits.
Colin Fisher, who had been so sharp in his first three outings, hit a snag for the first time in his college career. Three straight one-out singles in the second plated the first run for the Bears in the top of the second for Fisher's first earned run of the season.
Back-to-back hit batters to start the third spelled more trouble for the Noble, Okla., native. Drew Sturgeon hit an RBI single up the middle to double the lead to 2-0, but Fisher stranded two more on the basepaths before the offense finally picked up steam after failing to put a runner on base in the first two innings.
The Razorbacks' five-run lead didn't last long. UCA stormed back with a four-run inning with two runs charged to both Cooper Dossett and Koty Frank in the fifth to trim the deficit to just 7-6. A walk and a hit batter set up the big inning for the Bears. Jagger Schlattle and Sturgeon both had RBI hits in the frame.
Gage Wood and Stone Hewlett settled stemmed the tide, pitching back-to-back scoreless frames in the sixth and the seventh. Hewlett had the rare four-strikeout inning after a strikeout wild pitch.
The offense went cold after the seven-run burst managing just two hits over the next four innings, however, back-to-back singles to lead off the inning allowed the Razorbacks to scratch across an insurance run. Hudson White gave the Razorbacks a three-run lead heading to the ninth with a sac fly.
Despite the go-ahead run being put on first base with the bases loaded in the ninth and a run being pushed across, Gabe Gaeckle's two-inning save pushed the Razorback win streak to six.
"I think each outing it gets easier," Gaeckle said. "You just have more confidence the more you do it. I’m starting to get used to those situations where it’s a tight ball game and I’m coming in the later innings. It’s just fun being out there and competing."
The Hogs now take on McNeese State 3 p.m. Friday inside Baum-Walker Stadium.
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