FRISCO, Texas — Arkansas broke out the heavy metal at the plate and hammered Nebraska 15-5 Saturday night-Sunday morning in the fifth game of the Frisco Classic.
Arkansas (8-2) throttled the Huskers (2-6) with a 15-hit attack.
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville starter Trevor Stephan (3-0) was in a bit of hot water at the outset after walking Nebraska leadoff man Mojo Hagge, allowing a double by Angelo Altavilla and walking Jake Meyers to load the bases in the top of the first. He then retired cleanup hitter Ben Miller on a foul popup before the Huskers opened the game’s scoring with a sacrifice fly by Scott Schreiber.
Stephan later settled and earned the pitching victory after striking out eight and walking three in the six innings before giving way to relief pitcher Weston Rogers. Stephan scattered three hits and allowed just one earned run during his starting stint.
Luke Bonfield reached on an error in the Razorbacks half of the first inning before Grant Koch was hit by a pitch. Freshman center fielder Dominic Fletcher then tied the game 1-1 with a two-out, RBI single. Carson Shaddy followed with a two-run double to give the Razorbacks a 3-1 lead in the opening frame as all three runs were unearned.
Shaddy reached base all four times he was in the box with three doubles, a walk and a sacrifice fly to drive in a season-best five runs before being lifted in the sixth inning for a pinch runner.
Nebraska bounced back to cut the advantage to 3-2 on a run-scoring error and Mojo Hagge’s RBI sacrifice fly to center off Stephan in the second inning. That was as close as it got.
In the bottom of the third, Arkansas struck again on a walk by Bonfield, catcher Grant Koch’s double, a walk to Dominic Fletcher, and a two-run double by Shaddy to raise the score to 5-2. A run-producing infield groundout by DH Evan Lee made it 6-2 Arkansas in the same stanza. That chased starting and losing pitcher Jake Hohensee (0-1) of the Huskers, but a double play on a lined shot to first by McFarland ended the threat and kept the advantage at four runs.
Arledge singled to open the fourth inning for the Razorbacks, but Chad Spanberger grounded into a double play to quell the initial threat. UA then loaded the bases three hitters later, and Shaddy drove in yet another run with a bases-loaded walk to run the score to 7-2 Arkansas.
Lee led off the Arkansas fifth inning with a single before McFarland walked. Two outs later, Bonfield singled to load the bases, and Koch launched a grand slam (his team-leading fourth home in 10 games) to put the game virtually out of reach at 11-2.
McFarland then singled home the 12th Razorbacks run in the bottom of the sixth to start another scoring rally. Bonfield singled in run No. 13 two outs later.
Shaddy’s backup at second base Jaxon Williams later tripled in the 14th run in the bottom of the seventh inning and scored the 15th run of the contest on an RBI groundout by Lee who had a pair of RBI in the encounter.
Nebraska’s Hagge singled in the third Husker run in the top of the eighth inning for his second RBI of the night and morning as the game stretched past midnight into Sunday morning. Altavilla brought home the fourth NU run with a bases loaded walk in the same inning, and Joe Acker pushed home NU’s fifth marker with yet another bases loaded walk.
Both teams’ pitchers allowed 16 composite earned runs, and the two squads left 21 runners stranded in the lengthy contest.
The Huskers also are a very familiar program for Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn who headed the NU baseball program from 1998-2002 and took Nebraska to the NCAA World Series in Omaha for the first time in 2001. Arkansas increased its all-time baseball series advantage to 12-9 in 21 outings against NU.