HOOVER, Ala. — Texas A&M will get another shot at the University of Arkansas baseball team in today’s SEC Tournament semifinal at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.
The No. 4 Razorbacks (41-15) play the Aggies (35-24) for a fifth time this season — and second time in four days — when they meet at noon with the winner advancing to the SEC Tournament championship game Sunday.
Arkansas is 4-0 against Texas A&M this season, including a three-game sweep in Fayetteville and a 6-5 victory in 11 innings on Wednesday in the Razorbacks’ SEC Tournament opener.
The Aggies, the No. 10 seed in the tournament, stayed alive by beating No. 3 LSU 5-4 on Friday, while the Razorbacks had the day off after beating the Tigers 5-4 on Thursday.
“We’ve been very fortunate to win the games against them this year,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said of the Aggies. “We’ve played some tight games with them, and made a couple big plays, pitched well against them.
“We’re really familiar with each other. They’re just a really good Division I baseball team.”
Texas A&M Coach Jim Schlossnagle heaped praise on Van Horn and the Razorbacks, mentioning Peyton Holt, who has excelled as a starting second baseman in place of injured Peyton Stovall.
“Their program is at a point that we need to get Texas A&M to,” Schlossnagle said. “Where you have guys go down and then someone like [second baseman Peyton] Holt, who hasn’t played much the whole year, he has so much confidence in that jersey, and there’s such a culture of winning and championship baseball that Coach Van Horn has built that it’s just kind of a next-man-up mentality.
“We’ll get there one day, and playing teams like that and playing teams like LSU, that’s how you do it.
“The players look across the field and say, that’s what we need to be, and as coaches we look and say, all right, we need to get to that level of recruiting.
“We’ll get there, but Arkansas is the preeminent program to me in this league right now.”
Texas A&M shortstop Hunter Haas hit a three-run home run in the seventh inning to give the Aggies a 5-3 lead over LSU and they held on to win after reliever Evan Aschenbeck allowed a run in the ninth inning, but left runners stranded at first and third when he retired Brayden Jobert on a popup.
“That team can win a national title that we just played,” LSU Coach Jay Johnson said of the Aggies. “And they finished in 10th place in our league.”
Schlossnagle didn’t name a starting pitcher for today’s game while Arkansas will start Brady Tygart.
Through 4 SEC Tournament games, the Aggies have used 6 pitchers who threw at least 7 innings in conference play.
“I don’t know who we’re pitching,” Schlossnagle said. “Do we have pitchers to pitch? We’ve got some guys that haven’t pitched in a while.”
“We’re going to have to run some different arms out there because I’m feeling pretty confident that we’re in the NCAA Tournament, so I don’t want to hurt anybody or stretch anybody too much.
“But we’re going to have to have some other guys go out there and compete against the Razorbacks.”
Haas said the Aggies are excited to take on Arkansas again.
“I personally have had a blast playing against them because they’re such a great team and it’s always a good competition,” Haas said. “I expect it to be another really competitive game, and I’m looking forward to it.”