Hogs' Dave Van Horn on Win Over ORU
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.
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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.