COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Arkansas baseball team will bring a championship home from Central Texas.
The second-ranked Razorbacks defeated fourth-ranked Texas A&M 6-3 on Friday in front of a raucous 7,980 at Blue Bell Park to clinch the SEC West title for the fifth time in six seasons and ninth time in program history.
“It’s one of our goals when we start out,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “We’re in the Western Division and we want to finish on top. There’s a lot of teams who haven’t been able to do that and we’ve done it five of the last six years.”
Arkansas (43-11, 20-9 SEC) evened the three-game series at one game apiece. The teams will play the regular-season finale Saturday at 2 p.m.
Texas Tech transfers Hudson White and Mason Molina each came up big in their returns to the Lone Star State.
Molina entered as a reliever in the seventh inning and worked around an inherited base runner against the top of the Aggies’ lineup. He struck out Gavin Grahovac, got a pop up to second base from Jace LaViolette and an inning-ending ground out to shortstop from Braden Montgomery.
That put momentum in the Razorbacks’ dugout, and they capitalized quickly. Peyton Stovall singled and Wehiwa Aloy doubled to lead off the top of the eighth inning before White launched a 404-foot home run to left field to give Arkansas a 6-3 lead.
It was White’s fifth home run of the year and fourth in seven games. The Arkansas catcher went 2 for 3 and scored twice.
“I’ve just been trying to stick to my plan and stick to my routine,” White said. “I’m just trying to help the team keep stacking up wins.”
Pitching in relief for the first time since his freshman season at Texas Tech in 2022, Molina retired all nine batters he faced.
“I thought he did a great job,” Van Horn said. “He came in in a tough situation and got us through the inning.”
Molina had struggled with command in his previous three starts against South Carolina, Kentucky and Mississippi State, which led Van Horn and pitching coach Matt Hobbs to make a change in the rotation.
“I just saw a lot of relief in his face,” Van Horn said. “I know he feels great about it and we feel great about what he saw. I mean his velocity was up and he looked really good out there. It was big for our team.”
Texas A&M (43-11, 18-11) got off to a quick start. The second baseman Stovall made an errant throw to first base on a ground ball from LaViolette before Montgomery popped a two-run opposite-field home run 363 feet to left to give the Aggies a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.
Arkansas answered with a run in each of the second and third innings. Peyton Holt’s RBI single scored Holt in the second and Aloy tied the game 2-2 with a 401-foot solo home run in the third.
The Aggies regained the lead in the bottom of the third on LaViolette’s RBI single to score Grahovac.
All three Texas A&M runs came against Arkansas starter Gage Wood, who pitched well with base runners in his first SEC start and first start on the road. Wood allowed seven base hits but wiggled out of jams for five innings. He allowed 3 runs (2 earned), struck out 5 and threw 58 of 86 pitches for strikes.
Van Horn said he was pleased with how Wood did not panic to the quick start by the Aggies.
“He threw strikes and didn’t give them much,” Van Horn said. “That’s all you can ask.”
Ben McLaughlin tied the game 3-3 with an opposite-field single to score Stovall in the sixth. Stovall singled to lead off the inning and went 3 for 4 with a walk batting third.
Right-hander Brad Rudis was a late add to the starting lineup and pitched 1 2/3 innings for the Aggies. The originally scheduled starter, left-hander Justin Lamkin, pitched 3 2/3 innings with 2 runs and 8 strikeouts in relief.
The Razorbacks scored the go-ahead runs against right-handed reliever Josh Stewart who allowed 4 hits and struck out 3 in 1 2/3 innings.
Parker Coil pitched a scoreless sixth for the Razorbacks. He hit the Aggies’ leadoff batter with a pitch in the seventh before Molina put out the fire.
Arkansas handed Texas A&M its third home loss. The Aggies are 31-3 at Blue Bell Park.
“The story of the night,” Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said, “is that we had a bunch of hits early in the game and chances to score and not a bunch of hits late in the game.”
