Arkansas Razorbacks' coach Dave Van Horn on strong pitching from six on the mound in wrapping up solid win over good Golden Eagles' team in final tuneup.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Good game, not a lot of action.
00:02 A lot of good pitching, a lot of strikes being thrown.
00:05 The inning that some strikes weren't thrown,
00:07 we took advantage of it and punched in three runs.
00:10 And obviously when Kendall hit the home run,
00:13 gave us four run lead, that's kind of the,
00:15 that's one of the magic numbers.
00:17 You didn't get to four, it's a little bit more difficult.
00:20 And it just seemed like we held on at the end.
00:23 And we had a chance in the seventh,
00:25 you know, to just tack on one more run.
00:28 Give credit to their pitcher, they struck her, hit her out
00:30 in three pitches.
00:31 And then, you know, we didn't get that big hit.
00:34 But really for us, you know, this was a game that was,
00:38 you know, it was a little, had me a little worried
00:41 because of conference starting this weekend
00:44 and, you know, the game before or after the weekend.
00:48 And, you know, I thought our guys showed up,
00:50 they were into it.
00:51 I just thought all Robert's pitches pretty good
00:54 for the most part.
00:57 It was really good to see, you know, Fisher and Gackley,
01:00 our young pitchers go out and continue to pretty much
01:03 pound the zone, throw a lot of strikes.
01:05 And I thought Will McIntyre came in
01:08 and threw the ball really well.
01:09 He wanted to get a couple innings today.
01:10 And Hewlett came in, got the one lefty out,
01:13 got a righty out, didn't get the lefty out.
01:15 And we thought, well, we better, you know,
01:17 get Dylan in there and get him a little more
01:19 of a leverage situation.
01:21 And ball was coming out of his hand good.
01:23 They took a couple of good swings at him, but you know,
01:26 I was proud of him, he threw well.
01:27 And then Cody Frank, you know, kind of hard luck pitcher
01:30 at a fly ball in left field,
01:31 probably should have been caught.
01:33 And, you know, they had a C and I single
01:36 that we get the, you know, the infield playing the pole
01:39 and he slaps one through the middle.
01:41 But, you know, overall, I thought our pitching
01:45 did an outstanding job of just making them earn everything.
01:48 I think we had two walks on the day and, you know,
01:51 that's a winning formula if you feel the ball a little bit.
01:56 - Fisher was kind of cruising along there
01:57 until there were two outs in the third,
01:58 loaded the bases, but got out of it.
02:00 How big was that considering he not only got out of it,
02:02 but it was after y'all just taken a three nothing lead.
02:04 - Yeah, you know, it was two quick outs.
02:06 He was thinking, wow, this is good.
02:08 This was going to be his last inning.
02:10 And, you know, he ended up having to throw
02:12 a few more pitches than, you know, we thought
02:14 after he got the first couple outs,
02:16 but it was good to see him finish it up
02:17 and not let them, you know, cut into that lead
02:21 that we just got and kind of flip the momentum
02:24 back to their dugout.
02:24 It stayed with us and, you know,
02:27 I thought he did a great job of coming out
02:29 and obviously throwing the ball over the plate
02:32 and mix it up pretty good.
02:33 You know, they're hitting about 300 as a team.
02:35 They've scored a lot and got a lot of players back
02:39 off a team that was really good from last year.
02:41 So they know how to win.
02:43 They know how to, you know,
02:44 even when maybe things aren't going good,
02:46 they stick around and that's what teams that win do.
02:48 They kind of find a way to stay in the game.
02:50 So good job by our young guys today.
02:54 - You mentioned it was going to be Fischer's last inning.
02:55 Is that because you're trying to keep him available
02:57 for this weekend?
02:58 - Yeah, you know, you never know how it's going to go,
03:00 what's going to happen,
03:02 or if somebody might come up sore or sick or whatever,
03:04 because, you know, things are happening.
03:06 That's the way it works.
03:07 So, you know, you get into the season and, you know,
03:11 we still got flu running around.
03:13 We got COVID running around and, you know,
03:16 you just got to make sure you got guys available.
03:19 - Yeah, just how good was it to see
03:23 after maybe some of the emotional return
03:25 from Stovall this weekend?
03:26 He followed it up today and really had one of the bigger
03:29 hits of the evening for you guys.
03:30 - That was a big hit.
03:31 Drove in two runs and, you know,
03:33 then he took it his last at bat.
03:35 He hit that ball super hard and to the deepest part
03:38 of the park and you got to love it when hitters stay
03:41 through the middle of the field, you know,
03:43 and, but I really liked what I'm seeing
03:46 from swinging the bat and for him to get that big hit there
03:50 and give us lead or extend the lead
03:52 or whatever happened there, you know,
03:53 two RBIs, that was, that was good.
03:56 I mean, like I think four games,
03:59 we got seven or eight RBIs already
04:01 and squared up a lot of balls,
04:02 hit two or three balls hard that were,
04:04 that have been caught.
04:05 So it's not like he's been just dropping singles
04:08 and blooping balls and he's been hitting the ball hard.
04:11 - Ben's been so good defensively at first base.
04:13 Is that something that you could kind of see bubbling
04:15 in the off season, just him being an elite defender?
04:18 - Yeah, we've talked about it, you know,
04:20 in coach's office many a time that we see him getting better
04:23 and better and I think he just starting
04:25 to feel real confident at first base.
04:27 You know, he's a third baseman when he got here
04:30 and it's a, it's just a different, different over there,
04:32 but now it works good, you know,
04:36 throws are accurate on a double play ball
04:38 and then he slid right back to the base, no problem.
04:42 It looks like he's been playing over there for years
04:45 and picked that ball out of the,
04:47 out of the dirt on a double play ball
04:49 and got us in the dugout and that was an easy pick.
04:52 There's some easy picks, there's little short hops,
04:54 those are fairly easy.
04:55 That was a long hop, that was an in-between hop.
04:58 Those are the ones that cause a lot of problems
05:00 and he did a great job with that.
05:02 - Aloys now got, now hit safely in six straight games,
05:06 been driving in a lot more runs lately.
05:08 Just as you're going into conference play,
05:09 how important is his bat and some of these other power bats
05:11 to kind of give you guys that edge?
05:13 - Well, it's huge, you know, I mean,
05:15 this is a guy that we know he can hit.
05:17 We've seen him hit and I think, like I've said many a time,
05:21 I felt like he came out of the blocks pressing a little bit
05:24 and he's starting to settle in.
05:26 I love the walk he took today on a slider,
05:28 I think full count, down way a little bit.
05:31 You know, he's been hitting it hard, you know,
05:36 he had a ball into the wind and he didn't get all of it.
05:39 He pulls it, it's out of the park.
05:41 You know, on a night like tonight
05:42 with the way the wind's blowing,
05:43 he's got to get that one a little bit better,
05:44 but he still hit it good.
05:45 And you know, on a calm day, balls out of the park.
05:49 So, really good to see some of those guys swinging it.
05:53 - And with Stovall in particular,
05:54 like just given how his career's played out,
05:56 slow start as a freshman, gets banged up last year,
05:58 how nice is it to see him just jump right in?
06:00 He's got seven RBI already,
06:01 just already playing well and driving in runs
06:03 and having fun.
06:04 - Yeah, he looks really confident.
06:05 He looks like a polished player, really pretty swing.
06:10 And you can probably tell it's a lot more powerful
06:14 than it was a year ago.
06:16 He's a lot stronger, you know, from just growing up
06:20 and all the rehab and all the work he did.
06:24 Lower half super strong and swings just as good as ever.
06:28 I mean, to me, it looks better than it's ever been
06:30 since he's been here.
06:32 That's my opinion at this time.
06:34 So, you know, I'm excited for him,
06:37 what's going to happen this spring for him.