Saturday night, orange and red collided at Baum Stadium, making for a rowdy throng of fiery fans in NCAA Regional Tournament action. Squadrons of Arkansas red nearly drowned out Oklahoma State’s bright orange bandwagon early on. But it didn’t take long for the red to sigh in disbelief as the Cowboys took an 8-1 lead into the fifth inning. The NCAA’s most heavily populated baseball theater, though, was again a packed house. Even 2, 681 visited Baum to watch Creighton’s slugfest triumph over Albany, 21-11, in Saturday’s early loser’s bracket pairing. Thirty-four hits, eight errors and 11 walks were sandwiched in between 54 outs and took four hours, six minutes to complete.

Meanwhile, the Razorback faithful impatiently began to rub sticks together outside Baum in preparation for a heated tilt.

The two colors, orange and red, complemented each other with one run on two hits in each half of the first frame.

Former Fayetteville Purple Dog Ben Tschepikow conked a hustling double to left-center to spark a fiery applause. And when two-hole hitter Casey Coon shot a single up the middle to score Tschepikow, the Arkansas crowd erupted.

As any biased home crowd would do, it jeered at home plate umpire Don Novak’s called “ ball” on Jess Todd’s first pitch. Todd’s second offering was a strike to which the crowd replied, “ same pitch. ”

The OSU orange mustered a rebuttal in its half of the first inning. Cowboy centerfielder Keanon Simon atoned for his first-inning gaffe in center that allowed Coon to snatch second on a ball smacked up the middle. Simon answered Tschepikow’s lead-off double to left-center with a two-bagger of his own to the same spot. A Corey Brown single and Ty Wright RBI ground ball later and the Cowboy crowd chimed in with a standing ovation to match the silently seated herd of Hog well-wishers.

The Arkansas crowd found its fire again in the third when second base umpire Jim Garman found himself unable to dodge a would-be single up the middle by OSU’s Matt Mangini. The ball ricocheted off Garman’s right leg and dribbled toward short. Arkansas shortstop Tim Smalling scooped up the ball and threw to Tschepikow at second. Tschepikow wheeled to first for what appeared to be an inning-ending double play.

Ty Wright, who was at first at the start of the confusion, alertly darted to second and then bolted home as a dugout full of Hogs jumped and pointed and the crowd hummed a collective “ boo. ”

The umpires’ verdict was to award Mangini first and bring Wright back to second.

Arkansas skipper Dave Van Horn had words with Novak as the crowd continued to voice its displeasure, holding out hope for a different result.

The Arkansas faithful had to hold their “ boos” to bite their fingernails in the bottom of the fourth. An ineffective Todd was yanked in favor of Dallas Keuchel after Todd issued a lead-off walk.

Later in the fourth, the Razorbacks elected to intentionally walk Wright to set up the double play. Only one problem, the bases were loaded for subsequent batter, Tyler Mach, who had clubbed 15 homers heading into the at-bat. Mach put it into afterburner and promptly jettisoned Keuchel’s offering to dead center for a grand slam and an 8-1 Cowboys ’ cushion.

But to the Hog fans’ credit, they stayed put. The general admission section still oozed with confidence. The season-ticket holders remained glued to their chairbacks and the swanky suites rocked with cheers and thunderous applause.

These fans didn’t help set an NCAA record for average attendance by chance. And despite the Hogs’ struggles, the fans continued to prove why, win or lose, Baum Stadium is still the best place to be for college baseball.

Heath Allen is a sports writer for the Northwest Arkansas Times.