PREVIEW: Razorbacks Travel To Texas For Round Rock Classic

After opening last weekend with a series victory over Illinois State, the Razorback Baseball team heads southwest for the Karbach Round Rock Classic. The classic includes Indiana, Stanford and Louisiana.

The Razorbacks will take on Indiana on Friday at 4 PM. Then, they will face the sixth ranked Stanford Cardinal on Saturday before facing Louisiana to close out the series of games on Sunday.

The Hogs will likely trot out the same trio of starting pitchers as they did Opening Weekend. Connor Noland will be the Friday starter. He allowed two early runs but pitched four straight scoreless innings before exiting the game after the sixth inning.

True freshman, Hagen Smith, who had a solid debut last Saturday will likely get his second career start versus the sixth ranked Stanford Cardinal. Smith pitched six innings, gave up five hits but no runs. He pitched out of a bases loaded jam in the third inning to secure a win in his first start.

Jaxon Wiggins will probably start on Sunday. The sophomore pitched five innings last Sunday. He gave up one run on five hits and threw 52 strikes on 77 pitches.

Head coach, Dave Van Horn likely expected more of an explosive offensive output than what he saw last weekend from his lineup. He was quoted last week saying to expect better hitting than pitching. “Winning games 11-10..” should be expected to start the season before the staff figured out their pitching. However, it was the exact opposite throughout opening weekend.

Arkansas has too much firepower in the arsenal for the lineup to stay down long. 58 of the 109 home runs off of last years team returned for the 2022 season. The 109 homers for Arkansas was a school record in 2021. To bet on a long stretch of cold bats would be a long shot. So far, Robert Moore, Zach Gregory and Jalen Battles have connected on a long ball in 2022.

The Razorbacks enter as the second ranked team in the country according to D1 Baseball. This is the same ranking the exited the state of Texas with last season when the Diamond Hogs swept Texas Tech, Texas and TCU at the State Farm College Baseball Classic.

Finally, the Razorbacks will face off against teams that they lack history with. This will be the third matchup between Arkansas and Indiana. The all-time series is tied a one win apiece. The latest game played between the two schools was in 1982 when the Razorbacks still played at George Cole Field. Van Horn played at second base that day in a 5-3 victory over the Hoosiers.

Arkansas has losing records against both Stanford (1-3) and Louisiana (1-4) but haven’t played either team in quite some time. The last time Arkansas faced the Cardinal it was during the 2008 season in Palo Alto, Cali. The Hogs last played the Rajun Cajun’s during the 1999 season in Lafeyette, La.