FAYETTEVILLE — Heston Kjerstad made a two-run difference in a one-run game Sunday against Dallas Baptist.
The SEC's freshman of the year took away a Dallas Baptist solo home run with an incredible leaping catch at the wall in the sixth inning, then gave the Razorbacks an insurance run with a two-out RBI single in the seventh. Both runs proved equally crucial in the ninth inning when DBU pulled within 4-3, the final score.
"For him to make that catch, it changed the momentum, you know?" Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. "It kept it in our dugout, obviously. It was just a tremendous job."
Kjerstad's catch will be remembered for some time as one of the best defensive plays at Baum Stadium, not only for the athleticism the 6-3, 203-pounder showed to climb the wall in left, but also because of the play's importance to an important game. With the Razorbacks ahead 3-2, DBU senior All-American Devlin Granberg smoked a 2-2 curveball offering from Arkansas pitcher Jake Reindl, a hit that looked to have tied the game.
But the ball was hit slightly into a wind that crossed from left field to right and held up just enough for Kjerstad to give himself a chance. He took two steps on the dirt at the warning track, then leaped and gloved the ball about a foot above the wall.
It sent the mostly-partisan crowd of 9,715 into a roar. Reindl took off his cap and lifted it in the air toward Kjerstad.
"That was quite the catch," Reindl said. "I was really excited because off the bat I was like, 'Yeah, that's probably gone. Yikes.' Then I saw him come down with the ball, so obviously I was really excited."
Arkansas' outfielders practice those kind of plays infrequently. When they do practice them, they do it on the chainlink fence in left field where Kjerstad made the play of the regional.
"You get them back there near the warning track and lob the ball and they work on climbing it a little bit," said Van Horn, who likened Kjerstad's catch to a memorable one made by Matt Vinson during a series-opening game against Alabama in March 2012. In that game, Vinson tracked a long fly ball and was able to stand on a piece of padding about halfway up the fence, then grab the ball in the air above the bullpen, similar to the way Kjerstad did Sunday.
"This one tonight was probably more special because that would have tied the game and we're in the finals of a regional," Van Horn said.
The catch came just minutes after Kjerstad committed an error - Arkansas' only of the regional - by dropping a can-of-corn fly ball that would have ended the fifth inning. Using only his glove hand to try to catch, Kjerstad misjudged the ball and it ricocheted off the glove and into the side of his face before hitting the ground.
Kjerstad indicated he was looking for some redemption.
"He (Reindl) had my back when I made a mistake out there in the field, so I just had to help him out, too," Kjerstad said.
Arkansas' outfielders were playing deep against Granberg, who was named regional MVP after going 12-for-18 with 8 RBI in four games. He hit two of DBU's nine home runs in the regional.
"I thought it was (another) home run," DBU coach Dan Heefner said. "I thought he got enough of it. Kjerstad timed it perfectly. He got to the ball perfectly, timed his jump and robbed him out of a home run."
The regional final between the Razorbacks and Patriots was the only game at the Fayetteville Regional in which a team didn't hit a home run. Through the first five games, teams had combined to hit 24 home runs at Baum Stadium, including seven in the earlier game Sunday between DBU and Southern Miss.
The Patriots hit five in their win over Southern Miss and four the day before against Oral Roberts.
Arkansas hit six home runs combined over their first games in the regional, but had to piece together runs against DBU. Two runs scored on a fielder's choice RBI, while the other two scored on two-out singles.
The Razorbacks' seven hits all were singles, including Kjerstad's two-out hit up the middle that gave Arkansas a 4-2 lead in the seventh. Kjerstad had over swung on a pitch earlier in the at-bat.
"We were just talking to him from the dugout, 'Just take a little bit off your swing and just try to shoot the ball through the middle,'" Van Horn said. "The next pitch was just a hanging breaking ball and he did what you're supposed to do with a breaking ball: hit it right back where it came from. Right when it left the bat we knew we had another run there, so it was hugely important.
"He was responsible for saving a run and he drove in a big run that gave us a two-run lead that we ended up needing to maintain the lead."
Any way you look at it, Kjerstad made the play that made the difference.