College Baseball

Hogs do a little more sweeping

Arkansas' Andrew Benintendi (16) celebrates a fifth inning home run with Luke Bonfield during a game against Eastern Illinois on Tuesday March 3, 2015, at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville.
Arkansas' Andrew Benintendi (16) celebrates a fifth inning home run with Luke Bonfield during a game against Eastern Illinois on Tuesday March 3, 2015, at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Sandwiched between a round of winter weather that rolled into Northwest Arkansas late last week and a forecast calling for more snow and ice blowing in today, Arkansas' baseball team was just hoping to get in a little work on the field.

Polishing off a three-game sweep of Eastern Illinois with a 7-0 victory Tuesday at Baum Stadium was icing on the cake.

"We really needed the games," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "It had been eight days before we played [Monday], and we were able to get three games in two days. The hitters needed to hit, and the pitchers needed to get some innings in to stay sharp."

Eastern Illinois agreed to come down at the last minute after California backed out of a four-game series with the Razorbacks in the middle of last week. Arkansas and Eastern Illinois got in a doubleheader Monday after Razorbacks players chipped in and spent about four hours scraping and sweeping up snow and ice off the field.

Another round of winter winter is expected to move into Northwest Arkansas this morning, which led to Arkansas and Louisiana Tech scrapping it game that was scheduled for today, so Eastern Illinois agreed to stick around and play another game Tuesday.

Arkansas outscored Eastern Illinois (0-6) by a combined 19-2 over the three-game series.

Redshirt freshman Carson Shaddy of Fayettteville made a surprise start Tuesday in right field when Tyler Spoon was a late scratch because of an illness. Shaddy sparked the offense by going 3 for 3 with 1 walk and 2 runs scored. Shaddy, who has started three games at catcher, lifted his batting average to .591 and had 10 hits in 19 at-bats.

"He is one of the most improved players on the team," Van Horn said. "He's a gamer and scrapper, and every time we put him in the lineup he is getting hits."

The Hogs took a 3-0 lead early with two runs in the first inning and another in the second. Arkansas added two more in the fourth and two in the fifth to make it 7-0 and cruised in with several lineup changes over the final innings.

"We jumped out on them early and were able to relax a little bit," Van Horn said. "I thought we might have let up with our concentration a little bit after that, but all in all it was a good win and a good series."

Starting pitcher Keaton McKinney worked four scoreless innings and allowed one hit to pick up the victory and would seem to have an inside track as one of the three main starters.

McKinney gave up one hit and improved his ERA to 1.42, but he walked three batters and was removed after four innings after throwing 67 pitches.

"He got the first few batters out in both the first two inning and then he missed with some pitches and put a few runners on," Van Horn said. "He pitched much better in the third and fourth innings. He pitched pretty well overall, he just let his pitch count get a little high."

Parker Sanburn, Jonah Patten, Lance Phillips, Kyle Pate and Cannon Chadwick all worked an inning and gave up only 1 hit and 1 walk and struck out 7.

Clark Eagan led off the game with a walk, stole second and came home to score when Andrew Benintendi laced a single through the infield for a 1-0 lead. Benintendi wound up scoring to make it 2-0 on an error on a play that should have gotten Eastern Illinois out of the inning.

Wild throws from Eastern Illinois pitchers contributed to another run that made it 3-0 in the second. Carson Shaddy walked and came in on a wild throw.

Shaddy doubled hard to the left-field corner in the fourth and scored on Michael Bernal's two-out single. Bernal eventually came home for a 5-0 lead.

Despite a fierce wind blowing in from right field, Benintendi showed impressive power by sending a shot over the wall in right-center to make it 6-0.

Weather permitting, Arkansas opens a three-game series Friday against Loyola-Marymount at Baum Stadium

Sports on 03/04/2015

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