FAYETTEVILLE -- Few baseball coaches are tougher than Dave Van Horn is on the Razorbacks.
That requires the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville coach sometimes displaying his softer side when times are the hardest.
A team that since last season burst from worst to first in the SEC West, starting this SEC season 8-2, didn't need chewing out for throwing away an 8-1 seventh-inning lead and losing 10-8 Saturday night to LSU.
Nor did the shortstop, Jax Biggers, whose two-run throwing error on what appeared would be the game-ending out accounted for LSU's tying and go-ahead runs in Saturday's five-run ninth.
Arkansas (8-4) wouldn't be tied for the SEC West lead with Auburn and Mississippi State without Biggers.
Van Horn eschewed a Saturday postgame of kicking butts for persevering pats on the back.
"I told the team that I think we have a great team and I really like them," Van Horn said. "I'll take Jax Biggers over most any shortstop in the country. The guy has made one error all year before that throw. There were many different ways we let that game away. Let's learn from it and move on."
Arkansas lost, 2-0 Sunday to LSU but did so because of LSU pitcher Eric Walker rather than seeming mired in Saturday's sorrow.
"We're a really good team and we know it," junior second baseman Carson Shaddy said. "This is not the end of the Hogs. We're going to be back."
GOOD BYE, BIG AL
Some of retired Razorbacks baseball coach Norm DeBriyn's teams, especially those on his 1979 College World Series runner-up team, will be saddened to learn that sportswriter David "Big Al" Lanier, 65, died Friday.
Writing in 1979 for the Springdale News, David, called "Big Al" despite his diminutive size, covered DeBriyn's 1979 Razorbacks closer than the gloves they wore afield.
He also became a Huntsville household word covering the Eagles 1970s champion football and basketball teams coached by Tommy Tice and Charles Berry.
"He is a legend when it came to reporting on the Huntsville Eagles basketball teams and football teams in the '70s," Tice e-mailed Monday. "I remember David had an old car that hardly got him anywhere, and we would let him ride on our team buses sometimes. As well as we treated him, he still did a very fair and impartial job of covering the games. Charlie Berry and I will miss him and cherish the memories we have of him."
Big Al variously wrote for the Northwest Arkansas Times, Springdale News and Benton County Daily Record.
Unfortunately some personal problems prevented his consistent employment.
DeBriyn helped him get on the crew ushering Razorbacks games. He was homeless for a while, and the experience allowed him to write eloquently a series of articles for the Benton County Record and Northwest Arkansas Times on the day-to-day homeless experience.
David Lanier's funeral is 3 p.m. today at the First United Methodist Church in Bentonville.
Sports on 04/12/2017