FAYETTEVILLE -- James Madison broke a 2-2 tie in the top of the seventh with four runs and went on to defeat No. 3 Arkansas 7-3 Sunday at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Arkansas (2-1) had a fast start to the game. The Hogs scored two runs in the bottom of the first and Mason Molina was rolling in his first start as a Razorback before running into trouble in the top of the fourth. Molina worked 3.2 innings and struck out nine. He did allow three hits, two runs and walked a trio.
In the top of the fourth, Molina struck out Brendan O'Donnell, allowed a single to Coleman Calabrese and fanned Jacob Steinberg for the second out. But then he walked Jason Schivone and allowed a double to Wyatt Peifer that plated two runs to tie the game. Dave Van Horn opted to pull Molina, who had thrown 72 pitches at that point and replace him with Stone Hewlett, who retired the only batter he faced.
"I thought he threw the ball pretty good," Van Horn said of Molina. "His pitch count got up a little bit and when he got behind that’s when they got the big hits. I was hoping he would go five innings. He went 3 2/3 and it’d been nice to get another inning and a third inning out of him anyway.
"You’ve got to give them credit. They fouled off a lot of pitches, they’re hard to strike out and that’s what really happened with Mason on his pitch count. They fought him."
Van Horn credited James Madison with getting timely hits when need which his team couldn't seem to do.
"You know, really what I saw was that we failed to get a couple big hits, they got a couple of big hits," Van Horn said. "They put together a four-run inning. We needed to somehow find a way to get out of that inning maybe only giving up two and do a better job. We got a guy get picked off in the first inning on nothing, nothing on. That was frustrating because you have a chance to score a run, grab the lead, maybe a little momentum. Who knows what kind of inning we would have had there. I know we scored a couple, but we might have had a real big inning. Just some of the little things."
It was freshman pitcher Gabe Gaeckle (0-1) who took the loss on the day. He pitched two innings allowing three runs, all in the top of the seventh. He gave up a single, walk and another single to start the seventh. Jake Flaherty replaced him did a good job. He did allow a single to Fenwick Trimble that knocked in Peifer and then Ike Schmidly scored on a throwing error by Ben McLaughlin. Mike Mancini scored on a sacrifice fly and Fenwick on a ground out to second. Flaherty then struck out Calabrese to end the inning.
"We had a first baseman cut a ball off that looks like it’s going to throw somebody out at the plate," Van Horn said. "No one said a word about relay the ball, nobody said ‘Relay’ and then he throws it away. That was the frustrating thing. It’s just the little things that who knows where that game would have been. They had a one-run lead, the ball gets the catcher, he tags him out, we may be rolling there. That’s a double play and they only have one in. So we gotta do a better job of producing some runs when we have opportunities. We created a couple of innings and then we didn’t come through. Give credit to them. They just played better than us today and they deserve to win."
In the bottom of the seventh, Kendall Diggs reached on a double. He then scored on a double by Wehiwa Aloy. The Razorbacks loaded the bases, but couldn't plate any more runs after pulling within 6-3. James Madison added an insurance run in the top of the eighth when O'Donnell hit a solo shot over the fence in left field to provide the final margin of victory.
Aloy and Diggs each had two hits to lead the Razorbacks. Both teams had 10 hits on the day and each squad stranded nine runners. Joe Vogatsky worked 4.1 innings allowing two hits, one run, walking three and striking out four to get the win. He was one of three pitchers for James Madison on the day. Van Horn praised Vogatsky.
"Well, he’s got good stuff," Van Horn said. "He’s their best guy. He kind of throws a high-carry fastball that stays on plane. He’s got a good breaking ball. He threw a lot of pitches. You know they were trying to get to a point yesterday where they could get him in. And obviously Friday they wanted to have a chance to win the game. Tie game and when they had that opportunity today they jumped on it. He held us down while they put together a good inning. He’s good."
James Madison Coach Merlin Ikenberry went into more detail about Vogatsky.
“Joe Vogatsky is our closer,” Ikenberry said. “I didn’t want to go to him in that leverage situation. But we talked about it before the game that if we have got to get them early, let’s get them early. He did an unbelievable job and I was really proud of that freshmen (Jackson) Logar coming in for his second appearance there in the ninth."
Arkansas and James Madison (1-2) will play the final game of the series on Monday with the first pitch set for noon. The game can be streamed on the SEC Network+. Freshman Colin Fisher will be on the mound for Arkansas while KC Smith goes for James Madison.
Photos Courtesy of Craven Whitlow CW3 Sports Action
