No. 17 Arkansas (31-13/11-10 SEC) scored
twice in the 10th inning to down No. 2 Florida (33-12/12-9 SEC), 3-1, and
capture the teams’ weekend series on Sunday afternoon at McKethan Stadium. After
the Gators took the opener, 3-2, the Razorbacks notched victories of 5-1 and
3-1 to win a series in Gainesville for the first time since 2008.
“It’s
been very hard for us to score runs,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Teams
go through this and we’re not immune to it. It’s a difficult time right now,
but we will get through it and we’ll hopefully be better because of it. I think
DJ Baxendale threw the ball really well. Arkansas is leading the league in
pitching for a reason and [D.J.] Baxendale is a Team USA pitcher. He didn’t
walk anybody and we were late on the fastball and early on the curveball all
day long. We tried to do some things: we tried a hit-and-run a couple of times,
we tried to steal and we tried to push the offense a little bit and do things a
little differently. We just haven’t been able to put it together. We need to do
a better job getting lead-off men on base, so we can get some offense and some momentum
going. I know we’ll get out of this thing and we’ll be a much better team
because of it.”
With the score knotted at 1-1 entering the 10th,
Florida junior Austin Maddox (Jacksonville, Fla.) went to a 3-0 count on
sophomore Jake Wise and freshman Johnny Magliozzi (East Milton, Mass.) (4-2)
came in from the bullpen and hit the batter on a 3-2 pitch. Redshirt sophomore
Jacob Morris laid down a sacrifice to put Wise in scoring position and redshirt
senior Tim Carver (2-for-4) singled into left field for runners on the corners
with one down. Sophomore Daniel Gibson (Lutz, Fla.) then replaced
Magliozzi (0.1 IP, 1 H, 2 R). Freshman pinch hitter Michael Gunn delivered an
RBI single into right field to bring across Wise with the go-ahead run and
leave UA with runners on the corners. A fielder’s choice by sophomore Dominic Ficociello
scored Carver for a 3-1 lead for the visitors and Gibson struck out junior Matt
Reynolds to end the frame.
Sophomore Barrett Astin pitched a perfect
bottom of the stanza to collect his seventh save in relief of sophomore Colby
Suggs (4-0), who threw 1.2 scoreless innings.
