This type of sweep rare for Diamond Hogs

Dave Van Horn wasn’t expecting a sweep when his Arkansas baseball team boarded a plane to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport three days ago.

"Realistically we were coming down here and we just wanted to win the series,” Van Horn said. “We figured we were going to have to fight like crazy to do that.”

Instead, the No. 2 Razorbacks swept the No. 4 Bulldogs by a combined 14 runs at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville, Miss. Arkansas completed the sweep with a 6-4 victory Sunday afternoon.

The Razorbacks also won 8-2 on Friday and 11-5 on Saturday.

Only twice before in Van Horn’s 19-year tenure had Arkansas won a road series over a team ranked higher in the USA Today Coaches Poll, and only once had the Razorbacks swept a higher-ranked team.

That occurred in Van Horn’s second season, 2004, when Arkansas defeated then-No. 3 LSU by scores of 11-8, 11-10 and 7-5 in Baton Rouge, La., to kick start its regular-season SEC championship.

The Razorbacks’ last road series win over a top-5 opponent came in 2015 at then-No. 1 Texas A&M.

Road sweeps of any team have been rare under Van Horn, who has been one of the league’s most successful coaches.

This weekend marked only the 10th three-game road sweep of an SEC team for Arkansas since 2003, Van Horn’s first season. The Razorbacks also swept Georgia in a weather-shortened road series in 2013.

Arkansas had not swept any SEC team away from Fayetteville since it defeated Alabama three times in Hoover, Ala., in 2015 while the Crimson Tide’s home stadium was unavailable due to renovation.

The Razorbacks’ most recent three-game sweep on an opposing SEC campus had come in 2014 at Missouri.

Sweeping in Starkville is on a different level. The Bulldogs, who have been to consecutive College World Series, had not lost a home series since March 2019 (to LSU) and had not been swept at home since March 2018 (Vanderbilt).

“To have an opportunity today to sweep that thing, it was kind of like, 'Don't let this get away without your best effort,’” Van Horn said. “That's what we talked about last night and again today. If we get beat, we get beat, but concentrate every pitch, make every pitch and field the baseball. We did it.

“Any time you can beat somebody in their home ballpark as good as Mississippi State, a top-5 team, it's hard to do. We haven't had a lot of success down here since I've been here, and probably not too many SEC schools have.”

The Arkansas-Mississippi State series had been dominated by the home team for several years. From 2016-19 the road team was swept, including the then-No. 3 Razorbacks in 2018 and the then-No. 2 Bulldogs in 2019.

Arkansas won a series in Starkville for the first time since 2012, and swept at Dudy Noble Field for only the second time. The Razorbacks last swept the Bulldogs in Starkville in 2010, when Mississippi State went 6-24 in SEC play.

“It's something we'll definitely look back on down the road that it was kind of a big deal,” Van Horn said Sunday.

Good away from home

With 96 more wins than losses at Baum-Walker Stadium since 2017, Arkansas has been one of the SEC’s hardest teams to beat at its home ballpark.

This year the Razorbacks are having similar success away from home. The Mississippi State sweep improved Arkansas’ record to 8-1 in games played away from Fayetteville, including 5-1 in true road games.

All nine of the Razorbacks’ games on the road or at neutral sites have been against quality competition. The Razorbacks won a game apiece against Texas Tech, Texas and TCU at the College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas, to open the season, and won two of three games at Louisiana Tech two weeks ago.

All five of the teams Arkansas has defeated away from home are likely to be ranked in the new coaches poll Monday.

Louisiana Tech’s Game 3 victory over Arkansas was its first win during a 9-1 stretch. The Bulldogs are 17-6 overall.

Texas Tech (19-4), Texas (17-7) and TCU (16-7) have also been good since playing the Razorbacks.

"I just think our guys show up and play,” Van Horn said. “I don't think they get real uptight about the location, honestly, which is big. It's kind of a mature approach. We have done well away from Baum Stadium because we've played more games away from our home ballpark than probably a lot of the SEC schools have. I think that's one reason that it doesn't affect us as much, because we're kind of used to it.

“Obviously we love playing at home, but (the road has) been good. Going to Arlington ended up being a really good thing for us, looking back."

Wiggins gains experience

It was not always going to be as easy for freshman closer Jaxon Wiggins as it appeared early this year.

Wiggins retired every batter he faced in his first three outings, and didn’t allow a hit or run until his fifth appearance in last Sunday’s series finale against Alabama.

Wiggins entered last week’s game against the Crimson Tide with a 3-0 lead in the ninth inning, but had to pitch through some tense moments to record his third save. He gave up a leadoff home run, walked a batter with one out and had three at-bats go to 3-2 counts against Alabama.

After the game, Van Horn and catcher Casey Opitz said it was good for Wiggins to face that kind of adversity.

"That's what he needs," Opitz said last Sunday. "It's not so easy in the SEC."

Van Horn said Wiggins' experience gained against the Crimson Tide helped him navigate a two-inning save at Mississippi State that included four base runners.

“The only difference was it was on the road and he had a very raucous, loud crowd getting after him,” Van Horn said of Wiggins’ performance in Starkville. “He did a nice job of handling it."

Luke Hancock walked against Wiggins to lead off the eighth inning and Josh Hatcher hit a one-out single against him. Wiggins worked out of that jam by striking out Brad Cumbest and getting Lane Forsythe to fly out.

He faced the top of the Bulldogs’ lineup in the ninth. Scotty Dubrule hit a leadoff single through the right side, but was erased by a 4-6-3 double play. Tanner Allen followed with a two-out single, but Kamren James flied out to end the game.

“You’ve just got to stay calm in a situation like that,” Wiggins said on the Razorback Sports Network postgame radio show. “You can’t get overwhelmed.”

Turning point

A two-pitch sequence turned the game in Arkansas’ favor in the third and fourth innings.

Arkansas starting pitcher Lael Lockhart worked out of a bases-loaded jam by getting Allen to fly out to end the third inning. On the first pitch of the top of the fourth, designated hitter Matt Goodheart crushed a home run to right field to give the Razorbacks a 1-0 lead.

Goodheart’s homer — his fourth in four games — sparked a five-run inning that gave Arkansas the lead for good. Cayden Wallace followed with a single and Brady Slavens walked with no outs, and Jalen Battles, Robert Moore and Jacob Nesbit all had two-out RBI hits.

“We just kind of poured it on there,” Van Horn said. “I think it probably shocked them a little bit. We went from being up one run to five.”

Mississippi State loaded the bases against Lockhart with a pair of two-out hits by Dubrule and Rowdey Jordan. Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs visited with Lockhart and Opitz following Jordan’s hit, and Allen flied out to center field two pitches later.

“He made a really good pitch out over the plate and (Allen) jumped on it and flew out to center,” Van Horn said of Lockhart. “Then obviously Goodheart hammered that first pitch way out of the park. Momentum was in our dugout.”

Slump busted

Robert Moore broke out of his hitting slump over the final two games of the series.

Moore went 1 for 3 and drew a walk Sunday. He gave the Razorbacks a 4-0 lead with a two-out RBI triple to score Jalen Battles in the fourth inning.

On Saturday, Moore was 2 for 5.

During his previous five games, Moore was 1 for 20 with 3 walks and moved to the bottom of the order, out of the leadoff spot. He struck out three times during Friday's series opener at Mississippi State.

Van Horn said Moore did a better job of staying in the strike zone over the final two games.

"Robert, he's still very young and he would be a true freshman," Van Horn said of Moore, who turns 19 later this week. "He got a little experience last year and he hadn't played in an SEC game until last week. He didn't get a hit, so I think he's probably pressing big time all last weekend, especially in Game 3, swinging at balls that are way out of the zone or up, and that's not him.

"I think he calmed down a little bit this weekend and when he finally got that first hit you could just tell he relaxed a little bit. He was taking better swings, laying off some pitches today and he got him one over the right fielder's head. That was a big swing for us. I think it's just learning. It's just a process."