PEA RIDGE — In a year that had high expectations for the University of Arkansas’ baseball team, local fans were disappointed with the team’s seeming collapse in the season’s second half.
After a truly bizarre super-regional appearance, the Hogs beat the nationally fourth-ranked and seeded Baylor Bears to punch their ticket for another trip to Omaha.
The Razorbacks were truly tough on non-conference foes this season, going 29-4 against teams outside the SEC. Their 15-16 record against squads within the SEC made it look as though an appearance in the 2012 College World Series would only be in our dreams. Indeed, the Razorbacks lost the first two games of the SEC tournament and were the firstteam eliminated
Monday night, the Razorbacks won the rubber game of a three game super-regional tournament by besting Baylor 1-0. Listening to the nearly four-hour game gave Hog fans (well, at least me) a feeling of doom as the Bears had scoring threat after scoring threat come to naught while the Razorbacks were listless offensively. In the fourth and fifth innings, Baylor had the bases loaded only to come up empty each time.
Bears starting pitcher Tyler Bremer only allowed two runners to get as far as second base in his nine innings of work. He finished the ninth inning with under 100 pitches thrown when he was taken out before the 10th inning. The decision to relieve him turned out to be a bad one for Baylor as Arkansas got two of their five hits in the 10th against theBear reliever, the second hit driving home the game’s first run. In the bottom of the 10th, true to form, the Bears again threatened, getting two men on as they had the runners to potentially tie and win the game.
The game ended, however, when Hog reliever Colby Suggs struck out a Bear for the last out. Suggs was the Hogs’ fifth pitcher of the evening.
For the Razorbacks to win a game like that, after pretty much being given the game Sunday over the Bears makes me think that they might have a chance to do actually well in Omaha.
In the Sunday game, the Razorbacks were trailing Baylor 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth. Having already lost a game to the Bears Saturday in the best-ofthree series, a loss Sunday would have put Baylor into the World Series.
Back to the Sunday game, the Razorbacks were the home team that day but were trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth. A hit, walk and fly out left Arkansas with a man on first and second. The next Hog batter hit a perfect double play ball that should have ended the game but a shortstop error left the bases loaded.
After getting the next Hog batter into a 1-2 hole, the Bears pitcher hit went too far inside, hitting the batter to force in the game’s tying run. That was enough for the Bears manager to pull the pitcher and insert a usually reliable closer. But wouldn’t you know it, the new reliever plunked the next Arkansas batter on the very first pitch to force in the winning run that in turn forced Monday’s showdown.
I have always had this theory or belief that when teams or individuals have bad luck over a period of time, most of the time that bad spell is matched with a good spell that sort of evens everything out. TheRazorbacks super-regional title might not be attributable to just luck as their pitchers were unscored on when they really needed to be, but still, Baylor played well enough to win and were truly shocked when the Hogs made off with the title. As a matter of fact, just moments after the game ended, the Baylor officials in charge of the scoreboard, turned if off in what had to be an excruciating defeat.
Now the Hogs are off to Omaha where they will play Kent State in a first round game of the double elimination tourney. They will play Saturday with the winner and loser of that game playing either No. 1 seed Florida or No. 8 SouthCarolina on Monday.
In the eight team College World Series, there are two four-team double elimination brackets with the survivors scheduled for a three-game series the following week.
With three of the four teams in the Razorbacks’ bracket being from the SEC, it is highly likely the overall tournament final will have an SEC team in it.
The other bracket has No. 2 national seed UCLA, No. 3 national seed Florida State, Arizona and tiny Stony Brook, a school from Stony Brook, N.Y. Stony Brook rocked the collegiate baseball world this past weekend when it went to the Baton Rouge Regional and beat LSU two straight in front of 10,000 screaming Tiger fans. Accustomed to playing before crowds of far less than a thousand, the Seawolves of Stony Brook got into the NCAA tournament as the winners of their conference tournament. Having never been nationally ranked in the schools’ history, the Seawolves ignored theirlast place tournament seed to win a regional. That victory put Stony Brook in as the 25th nationally-ranked team and that was before the LSU victories. Who knows how high they might get after that.
Arkansas won’t play Stony Brook unless both make it to the championship round. I always love rooting for the underdog so I will be pulling for the Seawolves (what’s a Seawolf?) at least until they play the Hogs.
Arkansas ought to have a pretty lofty ranking in the next go-round, and it was ranked No. 3 nationally just before conference play began. Since an SEC team has been winning the baseball national championshipslately, it just as well be an Arkansas team in 2012.
That would put the perfect finish on an unbelievably roller coaster season.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.
Sports, Pages 8 on 06/13/2012