Virginia vs Arkansas Game Recap

The Arkansas Razorbacks eliminated Virginia on Wednesday night by a final score of 4-3 in 12 innings. Arkansas earned the right to play LSU on Friday morning, and will have to beat the Tigers twice in order to advance to the Best of Three Championship Series that starts on Monday.

The game started out as a pitcher's duel for the first four innings. In the fifth inning, John Hicks hit a solo homer to give the Cavaliers a 1-0 lead. After that Virginia got two singles before Danny Hultzen drove in John Barr with a Double to make the score 2-0. The great pitching continued until the seventh inning when Arkansas finally got on the board. Brett Eibner hit a sacrifice fly that scored Brian Bingham to make the score, 2-1.

In the eighth inning the Cavaliers added an insurance run on a Dan Grovatt homer to make the score, 3-1. Arkansas was determined though not to let their season end, and they scored two runs in the ninth to force extra innings. The inning got off to a bad start, with the first two batters grounding out to the shortstop.

But the Razorbacks would not give up. Zack Cox singled to center field, before Brett Eibner tied the game up with a two run homer to left field. In the bottom half of the ninth inning, the Razorbacks turned a double play with the bases loaded to end the inning.

In the tenth and eleventh innings, Virginia had many chances to score but they could not put the winning run across home plate. Then, in the 12th inning Andrew Darr doubled to left field to bring home the go ahead run represented by Jarrod McKinney.

In the bottom half of the 12th inning, Steven Proscia doubled to lead off the inning. But this was the Hogs day as the Arkansas pitcher struck out three batters in a row to stave off elimination and send the Cavaliers packing to go home.

The next game of the College World Series is Thursday at 4:00 PM Pacific on ESPN2. The elimination game will feature the North Carolina Tar Heels against the Sun Devils of Arizona State. Pat Casey will be in the booth starting in the third inning as a guest commentator.