Arkansas’ 18-14 shootout victory over Ole Miss on Sunday ended in a battle of the teams' ace relievers who were pitching for the second time in two days.
The Razorbacks’ Kevin Kopps overcame a sluggish seventh inning and pitched three innings to close an Arkansas victory for the second consecutive day. The Rebels’ Taylor Broadway allowed three two-out runs in the eighth inning.
“It came down to Broadway and Kopps, their guy against ours,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “Fortunately for us, we got the lead.”
Broadway pitched 2 2/3 innings Saturday night in the second game of a doubleheader, but the Razorbacks made him work during a 19-pitch ninth inning that drove his pitch count to 45.
The right hander did not look nearly as sharp in his second outing of the series. He inherited Braydon Webb after a leadoff walk in the eighth Sunday, and allowed Webb to advance to second base on a failed pickoff attempt. He also walked Matt Goodheart in five pitches with one out.
Broadway came within an out of escaping the jam when he struck out Cayden Wallace in three pitches, but Brady Slavens — who was 0 for 5 previously — doubled to right-center field to score two runs and give the Razorbacks a 16-14 lead.
Christian Franklin followed with an RBI single on a 2-2 pitch to extend the lead to 17-14.
From there, Kopps was strong. He worked around a two-out single in the eighth inning, and around a full-count walk and single with no outs in the ninth.
Kopps struck out the Rebels’ Nos. 9, 1 and 2 hitters — Calvin Harris, Jacob Gonzalez and Peyton Chatagnier — to strand runners on the corners in the ninth inning. He also struck out TJ McCants after Ole Miss put the runner aboard to end the eighth.
“I think he caught his breath and then went to work,” Van Horn said. “He got ahead of the hitters and when he gets ahead of them, he can start cutting it, spinning it, whatever he wants to do there, and that’s what he did.”
Kopps threw 41 pitches during the Razorbacks’ victory in the first game of the doubleheader Saturday. In that game he allowed 5 hits, walked 1 and struck out 4.
On Sunday he allowed 4 hits, walked 1 and struck out 5. He gave up two singles after he entered the game with two Ole Miss runners on base in the seventh, and gave up a run of his own that tied the game 14-14.
It was the first run Kopps had allowed since a Feb. 28 game against Southeast Missouri State. He had thrown 19 2/3 scoreless innings prior to entering Sunday’s game.
Broadway, who leads the SEC with eight saves, had similarly been strong for the Rebels. He had thrown 13 scoreless innings in SEC play prior to the Razorbacks scoring a run against him in the eighth inning Saturday, and he had not allowed a run since a March 13 game against Louisiana-Monroe.
Good approach
Arkansas drew 17 walks Sunday, two shy of the program's single-game record set in 2013 against Alabama A&M.
The Razorbacks showed a good approach at the plate throughout the series, routinely taking Ole Miss pitchers deep into counts. Arkansas hitters took a count to three balls 44 times during the series, including 22 times during the finale.
Arkansas faced a three-ball count at least twice every inning Sunday. Ole Miss pitchers threw 214 pitches, only half of which were strikes.
“We just didn’t throw enough balls into the strike zone,” said Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco, who was ejected during the fifth inning for arguing home plate umpire Stephen Hagan’s strike zone. “You walk 17 guys and hit two, I mean that’s 19 base runners, over two an inning. You just aren’t going to keep another team from scoring, let alone a really good offense like Arkansas. I can’t remember a day that we were that bad on the mound.”
Ole Miss walked the Razorbacks 30 times during the series — uncharacteristic for a team that ranked third in fewest walks allowed entering the weekend. The Rebels walked 88 in their first 29 games.
“It was just a bad weekend on the mound,” Bianco said.
Van Horn credited his hitters for some of the Rebels’ pitching woes.
“I thought they did a tremendous job,” Van Horn said. “Their pitching staff this year is striking out a lot of hitters, and I thought we did a good of keeping those down (31 in three games). We also took our walks and we looked for certain pitches early in the count — more location than anything. If we didn’t get it out there, they didn’t swing. We definitely got into some hitters’ counts.”
Resume boost
Eight weeks into the regular season, no college baseball team has a more impressive resume than Arkansas.
Not only have the Razorbacks won a combined 10 games against six teams ranked in the USA Today Baseball Coaches Poll, they have won all of those games away from Baum-Walker Stadium.
Arkansas’ series victory at No. 3 Ole Miss was its third on the field of a team that might host a postseason regional. The Razorbacks also took two of three games at Louisiana Tech and swept at Mississippi State last month.
Arkansas opened the season with one win apiece over Texas, TCU and Texas Tech at the College Baseball Showdown on a neutral field in Arlington, Texas. Those three Big 12 teams are ranked Nos. 6,7 and 8, respectively, in this week’s top 25.
Mississippi State is ranked fifth and Louisiana Tech is ranked 19th.
It is still early to pay much attention to RPI, but Arkansas unsurprisingly has the best RPI in college baseball following the Ole Miss series. The Razorbacks also have the No. 1 strength of schedule and are 12-3 in Quadrant 1 games, which consist of all 12 games played away from home, and the home series against Alabama.
Packed crowd
Ole Miss announced a three-game attendance of 33,423 for the series, which was a record for a weekend at Swayze Field.
The two Saturday doubleheader games drew announced crowds of 11,857 for the nightcap and 11,524 for series opener, which rank fourth and sixth for Ole Miss home crowds. The announced attendance was 10,042 Sunday.
Ole Miss announced a plan last month to gradually increase home attendance to full capacity by the end of the season. The state of Mississippi lifted all covid-19 restrictions last month.
Ejection motivates Rebs
Bianco received a warning in the fourth inning and was ejected in the fifth for arguing from the dugout about the strike zone.
What was an 11-0 Arkansas lead had dwindled to 11-5 by the time Bianco was tossed. Ole Miss scored nine runs over the next three innings to tie the game 14-14.
“In a way it got us pumped,” Ole Miss second baseman Peyton Chatagnier said. “I think that had a lot to do with how we came back and kept competing.”
Bianco, who was last ejected in February 2014, said motivating his team was not his intent. He said he lost his composure.
“I will say I’m proud of them,” Bianco said. “Down 11-0, didn’t look good. The human nature a lot of times is to concede mentally and go through the motions, and they didn’t do that. Our guys competed for nine innings, and for that I’m proud.”
Rubber match success
Arkansas improved to 3-0 this season when needing to win the finale to take the series. The Razorbacks also won decisive Games 3 against Alabama and Auburn by scores of 3-1 and 6-5 in 10 innings.
Dating to 2019, Arkansas has won five consecutive series that came down to Game 3. The Razorbacks defeated South Alabama 5-3 in a winner-take-all matchup before last season was suspended, and defeated Ole Miss 14-1 in Game 3 of the 2019 super regional in Fayetteville.
Arkansas' last rubber match was loss was at Texas A&M in the final regular-season series of 2019.
Record meeting
Sunday’s game was the 67th all-time meeting between Van Horn and Bianco, who have met at least three times each season since 2003.
That surpassed the 66 meetings between the SEC’s two all-time winningest head coaches — Ron Polk of Mississippi State and Georgia, and Skip Bertman of LSU — from 1984-2001. According to Ole Miss, Polk and Bertman previously had met the most times among SEC head coaches.
Bianco leads the head-to-head series with Van Horn 39-28. The Razorbacks have won five of the last eight games in the series.
Short hops
• Cayden Wallace went 2 for 6 with a 3-run home run, and walked once Sunday. The freshman right fielder from Greenbrier is batting .346 in conference games.
• Arkansas freshman right hander Jaxon Wiggins had the worst outing of his season by allowing 5 runs on 4 hits and 1 walk in two-thirds of an inning.
• Arkansas starter Lael Lockhart allowed 4 runs and 1 walk in 2 1/3 innings. The Razorbacks’ three starting pitchers combined for only 31 outs during the series.
• Third baseman Cullen Smith was 2 for 3, walked 3 times and scored 3 runs Sunday in his only start of the series. Smith hit a three-run home run during the second inning.