Arkansas drops to No. 2 ahead of pair of games with visiting Texas Tech
BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON
FAYETTEVILLE – There’s a new consensus number one team in college baseball, but the honor still goes resides with someone in the SEC.
Texas A&M (30-4, 11-4), which has won six straight and 8 of 9, ascended from No. 3 to the top spot after sweeping visiting Vanderbilt this past weekend.
The Aggies took over the top spot from Arkansas (30-5, 12-3), who still leads Texas A&M by a game in the SEC Western Division standings even after the Razorbacks lost two of three at No. 16 Alabama.
Texas A&M, which travels to Alabama this weekend, earned the honor in each of the DI Baseball, Baseball America, Perfect Game, College USA Today/ESPN and College Baseball Central polls – all having Arkansas No. 2.
SEC Eastern Division and overall leader Kentucky (30-5, 14-1) is third while fellow SEC power Tennessee (30-6, 10-5) fourth in both the D1 Baseball and Baseball America rankings.
Clemson was a consensus No. 2 entering the weekend, but lost three of its four games last week.
Alabama freshman pitcher Zane Adams had a 7.88 ERA in three SEC games entering Sunday’s contest, but hurled eight shutout innings to lead his team to a 5-0 victory over Arkansas.
Adams had only pitched eight combined innings against Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky.
“They’ve got a good team,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said of a Crimson Tide squad that had lost five straight before winning Saturday and Sunday.
“I thought they had a good team three weeks ago,” Van Horn said. “Conference play started and they got off to a tough start. But they swing the bat as good as anybody we’ve played in conference play. They’re going to win some games.”
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Arkansas will return to action Tuesday night when it host Texas Tech (26-11, 9-9 in Big 12 action) in a 7 p.m. game at Baum-Walker Stadium, where the Razorbacks have won 23 straight games.
The game will televised by ESPN2 with Karl Ravech (play by play) and Kyle Peterson (analysis) calling the action.
Texas Tech is slated to start LHP Zach Erdman (0-0, 7.24 ERA) in Tuesday’s game while Arkansas will counter with RHP Ben Bybee (2-0, 1.00 ERA).
The two teams will also face off Wednesday at 4 p.m. in contest that will be televised by the SEC Network.
The Red Raiders had won eight consecutive games before falling to host TCU 4-2 on Saturday and 4-3 on Sunday.
Texas Tech head coach Tim Tadlock is in his 11th season at his alma mater and has led the program to four College World Series appearances in 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Photo by John D. James
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