Today at 10:21 p.m.
by Matt Jones
OMAHA, Neb. — The Arkansas baseball team is in must-win mode at the College World Series.
The Razorbacks lost 4-1 to LSU in front of an announced crowd of 25,464 at Charles Schwab Field on Saturday night to fall into the losers bracket.
Arkansas (48-14) will play Murray State (44-16) in an elimination game Monday at 1 p.m. The Racers lost 6-4 to UCLA on Saturday afternoon.
LSU (49-15) moved into a winners bracket game against UCLA (48-16) on Monday at 6 p.m.
In order to reach the national championship series next weekend, the Razorbacks must win 4 games in 4 days beginning Monday. A loss in any of those games would end Arkansas’ season.
“We are not done yet,” Arkansas shortstop Wehiwa Aloy said. “We lost, but we have to keep on going.”
Quality starting pitching was the difference Saturday. LSU had it from sophomore left-hander Kade Anderson and Arkansas did not from junior lefty Zach Root.
The Tigers scored 3 runs against Root in the second inning and he was lifted after 38 pitches. The game’s pivotal inning included a pair of 1-out walks to Luis Hernandez and Derek Curiel, and a 1-out bunt single by Daniel Dickinson to load the bases.
Chris Stanfield’s RBI single to left field plated the game’s first run and Root hit Michael Braswell with a 1-0 pitch in the next at-bat to force home another.
Root was taken out of the game when Arkansas was unable to turn a double play on a groundball hit to shortstop by leadoff man Josh Pearson. The inability to turn the double play allowed Dickinson to score and gave LSU a 3-0 lead.
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said it was a “hard decision” to take Root out after 1 2/3 innings, which matched the shortest start of his career. Pitching for East Carolina, Root pitched 1 2/3 innings as a freshman at South Florida in May 2023.
“The game [was] about to get out of hand,” Van Horn said. “Yeah, it’s early, but the wind was blowing in [and it was] going to be tough to hit it over anybody’s head. Scoring a lot of runs against Anderson, to me, it wasn’t something that was going to happen.
“I hated to do it, but I just felt like it was the right decision, and I’ll stand by it. It was the right decision.”
Anderson was dominant during his 7-inning start for the Tigers. He allowed 3 hits and 2 walks, and the only run against him was Reese Robinett’s leadoff home run to right field in the sixth inning to cut the LSU lead to 3-1.
Robinett turned on a 3-2 fastball and hit it 386 feet for his fourth career home run. He had not homered since he did so twice against Texas on May 3.
The Razorbacks were in the game after Robinett’s homer, but Anderson returned to form in short order. He retired Arkansas’ next 6 hitters — 3 by strikeout and 3 on unassisted groundouts to first base.
“He came after us with fastballs,” Arkansas left fielder Charles Davalan said, “but after Robinett hit it out, he mixed it up. He was landing every pitch.”
Anderson, a draft-eligible sophomore who is ranked the No. 6 MLB Draft prospect this year by Baseball America, mixed a mid-to-upper 90s fastball with good off-speed pitches that got the Razorbacks to make weak contact early in the game.
“[That’s] what we’ve been accustomed to on the opening night of every weekend this year,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said. “I thought he got stronger as the game went along. I thought he executed pitches at a really high level, which you have to do against that offense.”
The Tigers went ahead 4-1 in the top of the eighth after Steven Milam hit a 1-out double against Gabe Gaeckle. Arkansas right fielder Logan Maxwell appeared to misread the ball on his run, which turned a single into an extra-base hit.
After a pitching change to Cole Gibler, Curiel hit an RBI single to left on a 0-2, 2-out pitch.
“Gibler made the mistake 0-2,” Van Horn said. “It was supposed to be in the dirt and [if it was he] probably gets a punch out, and Gaeckle doesn’t give up any runs because that was his run out there.”
Gaeckle was great in 6 innings of relief. He allowed 1 run, 3 hits and 1 walk, and struck out 10.
“He did everything we were hoping he would do — held down a pretty good lineup and gave us a chance to chip away and get back in,” Van Horn said. “But their staff didn’t let us.”
Arkansas lost on a night when its pitching staff allowed 10 base runners and struck out 16 against a stout LSU lineup.
“If there’s a pitching staff that is capable of doing that to our team, it’s the one we just faced,” Johnson said. “Zach Root is an All-American. Gabe Gaeckle is one of the best pitchers in the country. Gibler is a lefty specialist and [Christian] Foutch throws 100 mph. That’s that, and I’m proud of my team for fighting our way to win.”
LSU right-hander Chase Shores replaced Anderson when Cam Kozeal hit a leadoff single in the bottom of the eighth inning. Shores struck out Brent Iredale looking at a 100 mph fastball and Robinett swinging at 100, and Justin Thomas flied out to center on a well-hit ball to end the inning.
“Thomas can’t hit a ball any harder to center field,” Van Horn said, “but that’s the breaks of the game.”
Arkansas had leadoff base runners in the second, fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth innings. Iredale hit into a double play after Kuhio Aloy’s leadoff walk in the second and Ryder Helfrick hit into a double play after Wehiwa Aloy’s leadoff single in the fourth.
Braswell at third base began both double plays.
LSU closer Casan Evans recorded his seventh save while facing the top of the Arkansas lineup in the ninth. Davalan led off with a single, but Evans struck out Wehiwa Aloy on a 2-2 pitch to gain momentum, and Maxwell and Helfrick both grounded out to end the game.
Arkansas has a hard road to reach the championship series. In the past 25 College World Series, only Oregon State in 2006 and 2018, and South Carolina in 2002 and 2010 lost the first game and advanced from their bracket.
Three of those teams won the national championship.
“We know we didn’t play well, but [Van Horn] said we are here for a reason,” Davalan said. “There have been teams before us that have lost the first game and come back to make a run.”
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