By Otis Kirk
FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas' stay in the SEC Tournament ended on Friday with a 7-5 loss to Florida.
The Hogs had lost to Alabama 4-3 previously in the tournament. On Friday, it appeared the Gators were going to cruise to an easy win. They held a 7-2 lead heading to top of the ninth. With two outs, Jalen Battles scored on a passed ball. Then, with Zack Gregory on base, Braydon Webb hit one over the fence to pull within two. Dave Van Horn missed the Alabama game with food poisoning, but was back on Friday.
"We got off to a really show start offensively," Van Horn said. "You've got to give (Nick) Pogue credit for that. We couldn't get a big hit off of him early."
Florida scored two runs in the bottom of the second and then added three more in the fifth for a 5-0 lead. Jac Caglianone and Colby Halter both hit solo home runs for the Gators in the fifth. Florida Coach Kevin O'Sullivan was complimentary of Arkansas.
"Credit Arkansas, they battled right there until the end and were one hit away from getting the tying run to the plate," O'Sullivan said.
In the top of the sixth inning, Cayden Wallace and Michael Turner hit back-to-back solo home runs that pulled Arkansas within 5-2.
Florida answered those two runs in the bottom of the sixth when Jud Fabian sent a solo shot over the fence and then Halter singled to drive home Caglianone.
"We finally broke through there in the sixth inning," Van Horn said. "We scored two then let them score two. That's got to be our shutdown inning to have a chance to get back in the game."
The Razorbacks had six hits to 10 for the Gators. Each team committed one error.
Connor Noland got the start and worked 4.2 innings. Noland (5-5) took the loss. He allowed six hits, five runs, all earned, one walk and fanned five.
"I thought their hitters did a good job laying off some borderline pitches early in the count," Van Horn said. "They worked the count, got a good pitch to hit and we just couldn't catch them."
Van Horn used Evan Taylor, Brady Tygart, Zebulon Vermillion, Hagen Smith and Jaxon Wiggins out of the bullpen.
For Florida, Pogue (4-3) worked five innings to get the win. He allowed four hits, two runs, couple of walks and eight strikeouts. Ryan Slater got his fifth save.
Arkansas (38-18) will now await to find out where it will go to a regional at since there's virtually no chance they stay home at Baum Stadium to host. Arkansas closed the season leaving two of three at home against Vanderbilt and at Alabama as well as then the pair of losses in the SEC Tournament. Van Horn's team hasn't had a down period like this in awhile.
"We'll try to rest up a little bit the next day or so," Van Horn said. "Just try to find some positives. The positive is we didn't stress out our pitchers all weekend. Offensively, we had an inning or two, but we've got to score more runs and get our mind right. Get back and regroup. We talked about it after the game.
" Yeah, one day it's one thing, the next it's another. One day we don't score, one day we don't pitch real good or maybe we don't field. Sometimes it's just the way the game works. Other times you just have to give the other team credit."
The 64-team field will be announced Monday. Some speculation has the Razorbacks going to Austin, Texas, while another has them at Stillwater, Okla. Both had the Hogs a No. 2 seed at those regionals.