FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas Razorbacks had 11 home runs through their first 12 games, well off the mark of last year's club.
But Arkansas opened the series against the Missouri Tigers with four home runs on Friday -- two from Nolan Souza and one apiece from Kendall Diggs and Ross Lovich -- and added three from Diggs, Wehiwa Aloy and Peyton Stovall on Saturday to bring the count to 24 home runs through 18 games.
With 10 home runs in four games leading into Saturday, Coach Dave Van Horn was asked if he felt the power numbers would continue to rise.
"We know it's in there," he said Friday night. "It just hadn't happened yet, whether it's guys aren't going yet, or every now and then the wind knocks the ball down, whatever the case may be.
"But we feel like we can hit for some power, and we've got a few other guys that obviously didn't hit them tonight, and they can leave the yard as well. It's nice to be able to have that, to be a threat really 1 through 9, to hit the ball out of the park, or at least over somebody's head. Obviously, it was a big part of the game tonight for us."
Aloha connection
Native Hawaiians were all over the field on Saturday, with Arkansas starters in shortstop Wehiwa Aloy and designated hitter Nolan Souza squaring off against Missouri left-hander Javyn Pimental.
Aloy hails from Wailuku on Maui while Souza and Pimental are both from Oahu, Souza playing at the Punahou School in Honolulu and Pimental from Kamehameha High in Kaneohe.
Pimental handcuffed the Razorbacks on one hit over 5 innings, Ross Lovich's two-out single in the fifth. He allowed only one runner to reach second base, leadoff man Peyton Stovall in the first inning after he was hit by a pitch and advanced on Peyton Holt's two-out walk.
"I mean, he didn't have his best stuff, didn't have his best command, but he just competed," Missouri Coach Kerrick Jackson said.
"I think he was a little sneaky fast for them," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "He was throwing 90 mph, but I think it looked like they were swinging at it like he was throwing 93-94. They just had a little problem with it. He just kept going to it, then he flipped the breaking ball away."
ERA drop
Arkansas right-hander Brady Tygart dropped his ERA to 0.73 with a scoreless 4 2/3 inning start.
The Tigers wound up getting a lot of traffic on the bases in the fourth and fifth, his final couple of innings, but he stranded the bases loaded in the fourth with a line-out from Matt Garcia and Will McEntire struck out Jackson Lovich with two of Tygart's runners on base to end the fifth.
Besties
First-year Missouri Coach Kerrick Jackson and Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs have spent large amounts of time catching up during batting practice the first two days of the series.
Hobbs, a former Missouri pitcher (1999-2002), worked as pitching coach for the Tigers from 2011-14 on the staff of Tim Jamieson. Jackson was on the same staff from 2011-15 as an assistant and recruiting coordinator.
Jackson played at Nebraska in 1997, the year before Dave Van Horn became the head coach for the Cornhuskers.
"I've known Kerrick for a long time," Van Horn said. "He's honestly, he's one of Coach Hobbs' best friends. They hang out."
Jamieson, who led Missouri to 698 wins as head coach between 1995-2016, had been the pitching coach at Memphis, on Jackson's staff, and Southern Illinois before returning to Columbia, Mo., as an assistant for Jackson.
"Tim and I got to coach together in the summer of 2011 with Team USA," Van Horn said. "That's where I really kind of got to know him as a person and off the field. He's a great guy. I coached against him when I was at Nebraska for five years, so we've known each other for a long time. Just a really, really good guy."
Hagen's heat
Arkansas left-hander Hagen Smith has been on his game during his last four starts after allowing three runs on a walk, hit by pitch and wind-blown three-run homer in his first three batters of the season against James Madison.
Smith had a 27.00 ERA and one strikeout after that one-inning start on a frigid opening day.
In the four starts since, Smith has allowed one earned run, on a solo homer, over 22 innings, an ERA of 0.41. The junior from Bullard, Texas, has given up 7 hits and 6 walks -- for a WHIP of 0.59 in that span -- versus 48 strikeouts.