FAYETTEVILLE — Right-hander Will McEntire pitched nine innings without allowing an earned run to lead the eighth-ranked Arkansas baseball team to a 6-1 victory over Louisiana Tech on Saturday.
The Razorbacks (12-2) won the best-of-three-game series at Baum-Walker Stadium. Arkansas will try for a series sweep Sunday beginning at 1 p.m.
McEntire (3-0) pitched the first nine-inning complete game by a Razorback since Dominic Taccolini threw 10 scoreless innings at Kentucky in 2016.
Three Arkansas pitchers — Zach Jackson at Kentucky in 2016, Trevor Stephan at Tennessee in 2017 and Kacey Murphy against Florida at the 2017 SEC Tournament — threw seven-inning complete games between the complete games by Taccolini and McEntire.
McEntire threw 97 pitches — one less than he threw during his previous career-best outing of seven innings against Auburn at last year’s College World Series. McEntire allowed 3 hits, 1 walk and struck out 6. He did not walk a batter until the ninth inning.
Arkansas was on cruise control in its seventh consecutive victory. Brady Slavens’ RBI double put the Razorbacks ahead 1-0 in the first inning, and Kendall Diggs and Peyton Holt hit back-to-back home runs in the second inning to give Arkansas a 3-0 lead.
Diggs’ 382-foot homer to left-center field was his fifth of the season. Holt, a transfer from Crowder (Mo.) College, his first career home run with a 403-foot shot to center field.
Jace Bohrofen led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a 343-foot home run to right field to put the Razorbacks ahead 4-0. Bohrofen has homered in four consecutive games and has five home runs this season.
Louisiana Tech (8-6) scored its only run in the fifth inning when Adarius Myers reached with a bunt single and advanced to second base on a throwing error by Holt, the Arkansas third baseman. Myers scored on a two-out RBI single by Karson Evans.
Peyton Stovall doubled home John Bolton in the fifth inning, and Stovall tripled and scored in the eighth on a single by Jared Wegner. Stovall, a Haughton, La., native, finished 3 for 4 and a homer shy of hitting for the cycle.
Rawley Hector (1-2) took the loss for the Bulldogs with a 4 2/3-inning start that included 5 runs, 7 hits, 1 walk and 3 strikeouts.
Arkansas improved to 10-1 during its 18-game homestand.