FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas freshman Evan Lee recorded his first start in Friday's game against Bryant.
Lee played briefly in the Razorbacks' opening-weekend sweep of Miami (Ohio). In his only plate appearance he drew a walk and scored a run in the seventh inning of a 10-run win over the Redhawks in the series finale.
But with Arkansas facing a right-handed pitcher, Lee was inserted as the designated hitter to give the Razorbacks an extra option from the left side of the plate Friday. Hitting in the two-hole he flied out and struck out in his first two at-bats.
In his third at-bat, Lee came through with arguably the game's biggest hit - a double off Bryant starter James Karinchak to lead-off the sixth inning. His first career hit was the start to a 10-run sixth inning that saw 11 Arkansas batters come to the plate before the Bulldogs recorded an out. The Razorbacks went on to win 11-8.
"I was going to look to get a hit early in the count," said Lee, whose double came on the first pitch of the inning. "He had ground me down in the last few at-bats we had. He was winding down and his velocity kind of got low. We wanted to stay aggressive."
Lee scored on Grant Koch's two-run triple in the sixth and added his first career RBI later in the inning when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. He scored his second run of the inning on Dominic Fletcher's sacrifice fly.
"It was so clutch for Lee to come through with that big double and get us going a little bit," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said.
Quick call
Arkansas senior Josh Alberius had to warm up quickly after Bryant loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning.
"My jacket was stuck around my neck about five minutes before that happened," Alberius said. "I had two guys pull my jacket off in the bullpen."
Alberius needed only five pitches to record his first save of the season. He induced a ground-ball double play on his first pitch, then struck out Bryant's final batter.
"He was the guy we wanted in there because he's got a little more experience and I didn't feel he would be all uptight about it," Van Horn said. "He came in and did his job."
Alberius was the lone bright spot in Arkansas' bullpen over the game's final three innings. The previous four pitchers allowed 5 runs (3 earned) on 6 hits and 3 walks in 2-plus innings.
"Guys came in and they didn't have their best stuff today," Alberius said. "You can't do that, I don't care who you're playing. You've got to come out with the mentality that you're going to strike everybody out and pitch to ground balls. We failed to do that early on.
"I think it's good to face some adversity, especially now early in the season than it would be later in the season."
Call overturned
Arkansas' defense had to come back on the field after the Razorbacks thought they recorded the final out of the top of the fifth inning.
Bryant's Ryan Ward popped up in foul ground near the seats down the third base line. Arkansas third baseman Hunter Wilson reached over the wall to catch the ball, but it bounced off his glove and into the glove of shortstop Jax Biggers who also ran over to cover.
Third-base umpire Scott Wilkerson ruled the ball was caught and Arkansas players ran into their dugout. But as the Razorbacks' leadoff batter walked to the plate for the bottom of the inning, the umpires convened to talk about the call.
The play was reviewed and replay showed the baseball bounced off the wall before it landed in Biggers' glove. Umpires are allowed to use video replay in college baseball's regular season for the first time this year.
"(The umpires) said they could obviously see it, that the ball came out of his glove, hit the wall and jumped up," Van Horn said. "Hunter couldn't tell what happened; he thought the ball just slung out of his glove. They got the call right, bottom line."
After Arkansas' defense came back on the field, starting pitcher Blaine Knight needed one pitch to record the third out.
"It was good to see him do that," Van Horn said. "He thought he was done for the game. We weren't going to let him come back out (for the next inning).
"He came back and got him out on one pitch, a change-up or something. That was good to see. That stuff is going to happen, but you have to handle the situation."
Koch heating up
Arkansas catcher Grant Koch hit a home run and a triple, and had 4 RBI on Friday.
Koch is 5-for-9 and has 7 RBI in the past two games. He is batting .353 this season and leads the team in home runs (2), extra-base hits (4) and RBI (9).
His slugging percentage is .882.
"He's a good hitter, a tough out and if you make a mistake he's going to hit it hard somewhere," Van Horn said.