SEC Baseball Tournament: Arkansas 16, Florida 0

Hogs add Gators to tourney feast

Arkansas’ Chad Spanberger (right) hit two home runs in the Razorbacks’ 16-0 victory over Florida on Saturday at the SEC Tournament, giving him five for the tournament. The Razorbacks face LSU today in the championship game.
Arkansas’ Chad Spanberger (right) hit two home runs in the Razorbacks’ 16-0 victory over Florida on Saturday at the SEC Tournament, giving him five for the tournament. The Razorbacks face LSU today in the championship game.

HOOVER, Ala. -- The Arkansas Razorbacks took their tear at the SEC Tournament to another level Saturday, blasting No. 4 Florida 16-0 with four home runs and a complete-game two-hitter from Kacey Murphy.

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NWA Democrat-Gazette/BEN GOFF

Arkansas pitcher Kacey Murphy limited Florida to a single and a double with 8 strikeouts and 3 walks Saturday as the Razorbacks defeated the Gators 16-0 in 7 innings at the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala.

Chad Spanberger hit two more home runs to bring his tournament total to five, while Eric Cole and Dominic Fletcher added one home run each as the No. 13 University of Arkansas, Fayetteville put a run-rule whipping on the Gators at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.

"Our offense took over again," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said after the team's most lopsided SEC victory in his 15-year tenure. "It's one of those games as a coach you hope for, but you don't expect."

Arkansas (42-16), which jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first inning, advanced to its fourth SEC Tournament championship game in search of its first title today at 2 p.m. (ESPN2) against LSU. The Tigers thumped South Carolina 11-0 in another mercy-rule game in the earlier semifinal Saturday.

Florida (42-16), which is projected to be a national seed in the NCAA Tournament next week, suffered its worst loss of the season.

"Offensively, they're physical, they can run, they've got some guys who can run into the ball and obviously today they proved that," Florida Coach Kevin O'Sullivan said of the Hogs. "If they can get a quality start like that from Murphy like they did today, that's only going to help them down the road.

"So, do I think they have a chance to get to Omaha? Of course, yeah."

Spanberger homered in his first two at-bats against Florida's Brady Singer to give him five home runs and 10 RBI for the tournament.

"What it feels like is kind of like cloud nine," Spanberger said. "I go out there and I see every pitch lately. I'm trying to get pitches I can hit and putting good swings on them. I'm staying true and trusting my approach."

The left-hander Murphy (5-0) was in control throughout, limiting the Gators to a single and a double, striking out eight, walking three and not allowing a runner to reach third base.

"He just used both sides of the plate with his fastball, and then he'd just dump that curveball over for strikes," said Florida infielder Jonathan India, whose third inning double was the Gators' first hit.

"When they put up five runs in the first it's mostly just going out there and establishing the strike zone with the fastball," Murphy said. "Pretty much attacking with the fastball, establish both sides of the plate, then when I get ahead in the count, kind of work in a breaking ball, or show it first pitch of the at-bat to get ahead."

Van Horn said Murphy's work was key in giving the Razorbacks a chance against LSU today.

"For him to go out and give us a complete game, a seven-inning game, was huge for our bullpen," Van Horn said. "It gives us an opportunity to save some arms for tomorrow."

Murphy's counterpart, the 6-5 sophomore Singer, struggled from the opening batter of the game: Cole led off with a single off Singer's pitching hand.

Spanberger followed with a towering shot over both fences in right field to spark the Hogs' five-run opening salvo.

"The game plan was to go left-center to left for both lefties and righties, and he kind of just left some pitches over the plate and we put a good swing on them," Spanberger said.

Luke Bonfield and Carson Shaddy sandwiched walks around Fletcher's single to load the bases, and Jax Biggers drove in two with a single. Shaddy came home on Greg Koch's sacrifice fly to cap the big inning.

"I think that's the first time Brady's been hit like that the whole year, so credit their hitters," O'Sullivan said. "I think he left the one pitch to Spanberger out over the plate for the first home run. But a bunch of his hits were groundballs through the infield.

"They didn't chase out of the zone. There were some really quality pitches in the bottom half of the zone that they didn't chase and got into some predictable offensive counts."

Jake Arledge led off the second inning with a single and Cole hit his fourth home run of the season into the Florida bullpen beyond the right-field fence. Spanberger ended Singer's outing with a solo home run.

The carnage continued, with Arkansas scoring two runs in the fourth on Fletcher's two-run home run, four in the fifth and two in the seventh.

Fletcher said the plan against Singer was "definitely attack the fastball early because we know he throws like 71 percent fastballs or something like that. We went out there and took some good swings on fastballs and got it going."

Spanberger added a double, his third of the tournament, in Arkansas' big fifth inning and went 3 for 6 with 3 runs scored and 3 RBI.

Cole, Fletcher and Biggers all had three-hit games as part of Arkansas' 15-hit attack, which included six extra-base hits.

Arkansas in SEC final

Today will mark the fourth time the Arkansas baseball program has played in the championship game of the SEC Tournament:

YEAR OPPONENT RESULT

1998 Auburn L, 7-5

1999 Alabama L, 9-3

2007 Vanderbilt L, 7-2

2017 LSU today

LSU 11, SO. CAROLINA 0 (7)

LSU is heading to its third SEC Tournament championship game in five years after sending South Carolina home with a run-rule victory Saturday.

All of the Tigers’ offense came in the first three innings, where they hit 12 for 20 with 3 home runs. LSU is averaging 8.3 runs per game during its 10-game winning streak, the second-longest active streak in Division I.

Left-hander Jared Poche (10-3) held the Gamecocks to 2-for-24 batting through the first 6 innings, retiring 9 of the first 12 batters he faced.

Shortstop Kramer Robertson ignited the Tigers’ offense, coming a double shy of the cycle while going 3 for 5 with 2 RBI and a home run.

Robertson’s home run came in the first inning on the third pitch of the game. Cole Freeman drew a four-pitch walk and Antoine Duplantis flied out. Greg Deichmann followed with a two-run home run to extend the lead to 3-0.

The Tigers added two runs in the second off three hits. Robertson scored on a Freeman single to right field and Freeman scored on a wild pitch by South Carolina pitcher John Parke.

LSU scored 6 runs off 6 hits in the third inning, including a 2-run triple by freshman Zach Watson, an RBI triple by Robertson and a Deichmann’s second home run of the game.

Sports on 05/28/2017

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