Hog Calls

Hogs can use Bulldogs as '17 pattern

Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn talks with players during the eighth inning of a game against Missouri on Sunday, April 3, 2016, at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville.
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn talks with players during the eighth inning of a game against Missouri on Sunday, April 3, 2016, at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Ironic that the Arkansas Razorbacks closed their miserable May of their sad 2016 against their baseball blueprint for 2017.

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http://www.wholehog…">Mississippi State goes worst to first in one of SEC's best years

Twelve of the Razorbacks' ignominious school record 13 consecutive defeats manifested in May.

Coach Dave Horn's Razorbacks were 26-16 overall and 7-12 in the SEC after winning the first game of an April 30 doubleheader against Texas A&M at Baum Stadium.

They lost that April 30 second game 11-8 in 11 innings and lost again, 6-2 to the Aggies in the series finale May 1.

Hard blows to recover from at home. Yet hardly boding endless gloom and doom it seemed on a Razorbacks team that in 2015 used a magnificent May while rallying from a 14-15 start to finish at the College World Series.

This year's May mayhem was wreaked on them.

Arkansas concludes the 2016 season 26-29 overall and a worst in the SEC 7-23. The Hogs were swept in May by LSU, at Baum against Alabama and at Mississippi State, plus two nonconference losses to Missouri State, one at home and one in Springfield, Mo.

Even while his Bulldogs, 40-14 overall and 21-9 in the SEC, clinched the SEC championship by sweeping Arkansas, Mississippi State Coach John Cohen could empathize with the hapless Hogs.

His 'Dogs were equally hapless last year, 24-30 overall and a SEC worst, 8-22.

The parallels startle. Van Horn followed a Razorbacks coaching icon for whom he played, Norm DeBriyn, and proceeded spectacularly. From his 2003 start through 2015, Van Horn's Hogs always advanced to NCAA Regionals and four times all the way to the College World Series while winning the SEC West three times and sharing one SEC overall championship with Georgia in 2004.

Since 2008 Cohen followed the footsteps of Ron Polk, the retired Mississippi State icon for whom Cohen played.

Cohen took the 2013 Bulldogs to heights that even Polk never reached, the College World Series national runner-up.

Then came State's 2015 crash that Van Horn's Hogs followed in 2016.

Between tradition and staff resolve, the Bulldogs rebounded in 2016.

"We have used them a little bit." Van Horn said of Arkansas inspiration for 2017. "I think everybody that has had a bad year can see what they did last year and how they have recovered. I talked to Coach Cohen a couple of times. He said anything that could have gone wrong went wrong for them last year. We [Arkansas] haven't been able to turn it around this year because bottom line we don't have enough pitching."

Under Van Horn and pitching coach Dave Jorn, the Hogs have always pitched well, once even leading the nation in earned run average. Tradition indicates they will pitch well again because they know so well what traditionally succeeds. So even if they succeed fast, don't expect it based on quick fix shortcuts.

"It might be next year or the year after before we get it figured out," Van Horn said. "But we are working on it."

Sports on 05/23/2016

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