Arkansas blows past Tennessee in slugfest
Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006
Arkansas topped Tennessee, 7-4 in home run derby and 13-11 for the ballgame in Sunday's windy rubber game of a three-game SEC series at Baum Stadium.
The Razorbacks' last two home runs in the ninth, Blake Parker's outout solo blast high off the green monster hitting background some 400feet in dead center, and Craig Gentry's 2-run, gone-withthe-wind shot to left after Matt Willard's bloop single, tied then won it.
David Hum, with two, Danny Hamblin, Chris Hollensworth, Danny Hamblin and Jake Dugger also homered for Arkansas and accounted for all 13 Razorback RBIs.
J. P. Arencibia, with two, Chris Kemp and Brian Van Kirk homered for Tennessee.
The combined 11 homers in a conference game set an SEC record.
The Gentry homer euphorically dispatched most of the attending 6,258 to their homes more breezily even than the wind gusting to left from 21 to 35 miles per hour.
Those gusts turned some ordinary fly balls into extraordinary home runs.
Off course, some, like Parker's blast, or the second homer by Arencibia that might have reached NASA tracking stations, were wellclouted under any conditions.
Wind blown or clobbered, they all counted, adding up to Arkansas taking the series.
Arkansas won 6-1 Friday night behind Nick Schmidt's 6-hit, 11-strikeout performance and losing 11-6 Saturday as Tennessee tallied 19 hits.
For the Razorbacks (23-6, 4-5 SEC West) heading into Tuesday's 7 p.m. nonconference game against Missouri State at home, it's the first SEC series triumph after losing 2 of 3 at Florida and to Georgia at Baum.
Tennessee is 18-10 and 2-6 in the SEC East. "We needed this one bad,"Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. "We needed to win a series."
They sure seemed to have it in hand with 7-2, 10-7 and 10-8 leads before Tennessee went up 11-10 in the eighth. Reliever Daryl Maday was tagged for Arencibia's 2-run homer and a solo shot by Chris Kemp.
Maday retired the first two in the ninth before Van Horn summoned lefty Devin Collis, the eventual winner, to retire lefty-hitting left fielder Julio Borbon before Arkansas' last roundup. "When I handed the ball to Collis,"Van Horn said. "I said, 'Look, we need one out. Get us in the dugout down one, you are going to get a W.' I felt it was our day to come back and win and thank goodness we did."
Parker, the junior third baseman from Fayetteville breaking a 1 for 27 slump with a grand slam Friday, slammed his first pitch from losing reliever Sean Watson in the ninth. Watson, the closer, had been in since the sixth. "He had been in three innings,"Parker said. "But he's a great pitcher. I was battling. I was hoping it was above the yellow line."
He didn't have to fret. "Parker's ball looked like it was shot out of a cannon,"Van Horn said. "That might have made it out with no wind."
The wind sure helped Willard's bloop land between Tennessee left fielder Borbon and shortstop Tony Delmonico and also gusted Gentry's game-winner. "He didn't crush it,"Van Horn said," but when I saw Borbon just stop, I knew we were going to win the game."
Hitting 13 homers for this three-game series, Arkansas got its first one Sunday on Hamblin's three-run shot in the first off Tennessee starter Josh Lindblum to offset Arencibia's two-run, first-inning shot off Arkansas starter Trey Holloway.
Hollensworth hit a 3-run shot in the second immediately followed by the first of two Hum dingers by freshman DH David Hum. Hum hit a two-run homer in the fifth after Hollensworth's windblown double. Then Dugger wafted what both Van Horn, coaching third, and he thought would be a foul ball - until they saw it inherit the wind. "When it went over my head,"Van Horn said," it was foul - then all of a sudden it just straightened out like a golf shot."
An Arkansas error in the first preceded Arencibia's first home run, and three Arkansas errors helped Tennessee score four in the third.
But the Hogs turned in the defensive gem of the day. With a great catch in the gap, right fielder Hollensworth, the El Dorado native and Texarkana Community College alum, turned Borbon's potential bases-loaded, seventh-inning extra-base hit into a sacrifice fly. "It was a great play,"Van Horn said. "I told him when he came in, ' You saved the game for us. You gave us a chance."
As did good fortunes of a favorable wind. "We've been on the other end of some of these things,"Van Horn said. "We deserved to win a game like this."Tennessee 204 010 130 - 11 14 0 Arkansas 340 003 003 - 13 13 4 Lindblom, Pryor (3), Watson (6) and Arencibia; Holloway, Rhoads, (4), Maday (8), Collis (9) and Walker. W - Collis, 4-0. L - Watson, 3-1. HR - Tennessee: Arencibia, 2 (6). Kemp (5). Van Kirk (3). HR - Arkansas: Gentry (3). Hollensworth (2). Hum, 2 (3). Dugger (5). Hamblin (8). Parker (4).
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