FAYETTEVILLE — For one day, Northwestern State right fielder Tyler Smith got a chance to feel like reigning National League MVP Christian Yelich.
Smith, who entered Wednesday’s game with five homers in 39 games, blasted three home runs and had 7 RBI as the Demons downed No. 7 Arkansas 10-7 before a crowd of more than 2,000 at Baum-Walker Stadium.
“They just beat us,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “ I mean they played good. They had a guy on their team, Smith, stepped up and had a great day. He hit three home runs and drove in seven runs and we couldn’t overcome it.”
All three of Smith’s homers came with two outs, including a ninth-inning homer off of Arkansas closer Matt Cronin that set the final score. The Razorbacks (31-11) defeated the Demons 19-2 the night before.
“Honestly, I don’t even know where that came from,” Smith said. “But I just got in good counts, put barrels on them and that’s all I can ask for.”
Smith had a sacrifice fly to put Northwestern State ahead 1-0 in the opening inning, then hit three two-run homers that tied the game 4-4 in the third, put this team ahead 7-4 in the fifth and 10-7 in the ninth.
Northwestern State coach Bobby Barbier was pleased with the Demons (24-16) and the performance of Smith, who was hitting just .237 coming into the game.
“It’s the reason we had 10 runs,” Barbier said. “He was phenomenal. We know it’s in there with Tyler. Tyler is always clutch. When you need a hit he normally gets it.”
That included the one off of Cronin, who entered in the ninth with his team down 8-7 and got a first-pitch strike against Smith, who swung from his heels.
“I was,” Smith said of trying for his third homer on the first swing against Cronin. “I knew a fastball was coming.”
The three homers tied the school record for a single game while the 7 RBI are the most by a Demon in more than a decade.
“I know my guys have confidence in me and I just went up there and battled my butt off,” Smith said.
Smith came up in the fifth inning with a base open and runners at second and third. Van Horn chose not to walk him and a run scored on a balk before Smith delivered his second home run of the day on a 3-0 count from Elijah Trest.
“That was the time we probably should have put him on,” Van Horn said. “Hindsight is 20/20; put him on. He just had one of those days. At the time, he only had one home run. After that at-bat he had two, and then obviously…he had three. Hats off to him. He had a great day.”
Smith actually had a chance to hit a another two-run, two-out homer in the seventh, but he grounded out with a runner on.
“It happens, it’s baseball, but I put a good barrel on that one, too, and that’s all I can ask for,” Smith said.
Smith noted that his team was happy it put up a fight on Wednesday after Tuesday’s showing.
“It’s good,” Smith said. “We bounced back and it just shows the fight that we have and the confidence we have in each other to just come out here and play every day.”
That was a sentiment echoed by Barbier.
“I just told them, 'Responding is everything,'” Barbier said. “You’re going to get knocked down in this game. Last night, we hadn’t had one like that in a long time. And it got to be (4-1) after the first four hitters. You can sit back and take your medicine and go home or you can fight back and see what happens. I was very proud of our guys today.
“We had some performances on the mound. That’s a really good team. That’s as good a baseball team as I’ve come across in the last few years. Just very proud.”
Arkansas went ahead 4-1 on Dominic Fletcher’s grand slam in the first inning after Northwestern State starter Jerry Maddox walked the bases loaded.
Phil Graham relieved Maddox in the first and did yeomen’s work, throwing 4 1/3 scoreless innings until giving up three runs to tie the game in the fifth on Jack Kenley’s two-run triple and Jacob Nesbit’s sacrifice fly.
Anthony Reich, winner David Hodo (1-2) and Tyler Pigott combined to finish off the game with four scoreless innings while allowing just two hits. Pigott earned his second save.
Trevor Ezell, Casey Martin, Fletcher and Heston Kjerstad all had two hits for Arkansas. Both teams had 10 hits.
“We had a couple of chances to maybe break the game open or maybe extend a lead and we just didn’t get that big hit,” Van Horn said. “We did hit a lot of balls hard. You think about a couple of the balls that (Matt) Goodheart hit and Fletch hit. Sometimes that’s the way the game works. We didn’t play real good obviously. We struck out too much.”
Arkansas started redshirt sophomore Marshall Denton and used seven different pitchers (six of whom were freshmen or sophomores) in the game and did not use any of its weekend pitchers until Cronin came on in the ninth to replace Jacob Burton.
“We knew what we were up against as far as pitching,” Van Horn said. “We were going to be very, very inexperienced today; just the situation we were in. We went with the older guys yesterday, get them a little bit of work, and today was going to be about some sophomores and some freshmen. That’s basically what you saw all day.
“Cronin had a chance to come in there. We wanted to get him a little bit of work today. We felt like that was the time to bring him in. If we had tied the game, we were going to let him work the ninth. And if it was tied in the 10th we weren’t going to put him back out there.
“He wasn’t very sharp. His velocity wasn’t real good. He had plenty of time to get loose, so, just give them credit. They made a couple of good swings. They scored a lot of their runs with two outs and got a lot of two-out hits.”
Arkansas will host No. 18 Tennessee for a three-game series beginning Friday. The Razorbacks are leading the SEC West at 12-6 in conference games.