FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas freshman outfielder Luke Bonfield will undergo surgery today to repair a broken ankle.
Bonfield suffered the injury while running the bases during a scrimmage Monday and will miss the remainder of the Razorbacks' fall practices. The Skillman, N.J. native was one of the top recruits nationally after playing his final season at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
The surgery is expected to sideline Bonfield for about eight weeks.
"This will give him a chance to really work on his body for the next couple of months," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. "We'll get him going on upper-body and then just work lower-body the best we can. Then we'll get him back into baseball stuff probably in November.
"I think the plus side for us coaches is that we've had our eyes on him for a couple of weeks during practice or skill instruction, and then he got to play in a couple of scrimmages. He hit a couple of balls out of the park, in our mind, during a scrimmage last Saturday indoors. He'll be right there battling to play. He plays hard and he loves it. We got to see a lot about his makeup."
Bonfield batted .379 with 3 home runs and 19 RBIs in 24 games as a senior. He was rated as one of the top 100 prospects for the MLB Draft by Baseball America, but wasn't drafted by the New York Mets until the 21st round because of sign-ability concerns.
Bonfield is one of several highly-recruited freshmen on Arkansas' campus this fall. The Razorbacks had the nation's second-best signing class, according to Perfect Game USA.