FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Jared Gates hit a two-run home run to cap a four-run, eighth-inning rally that kept the No. 1 seed and No. 11 Arkansas baseball team alive with an 11-10 victory against No. 2 seed Missouri State in the NCAA tournament’s Fayetteville Regional.
Top-seeded Arkansas (45-18) will face Missouri State (42-18) tonight to see which team advances to the super regionals.
The game, which finished at 3:10 a.m., featured a 1-hour, 25-minute rain delay and took six hours to play. It came after Arkansas defeated Oral Roberts on Sunday evening to emerge from the losers’ bracket to take on second-seeded Missouri State.
Jake Reindl (4-1) earned the win as one of eight Arkansas pitchers, while Evan Lee earned the save.
Jake Fromson (8-4) took the loss.
n Earlier Sunday, Chad Spanberger hit a go-ahead, solo home run in the seventh inning to help Arkansas rally from three runs down and beat Oral Roberts 4-3.
Spanberger’s home run was his 20th of the season for the top-seeded Razorbacks, and it was his sixth in the last two weeks — following five in five games at last week’s Southeastern Conference tournament.
The Golden Eagles (43-16) took a 3-0 lead in the fourth, aided by back-to-back home runs from Noah Cummings and Brent Williams.
The Razorbacks rallied with three runs in the fifth, and Josh Alberius (3-4) earned the win in relief.
Trevor McCutchin (1-1) took the loss.
n Clemson 6, Vanderbilt 0: At Clemson, South Carolina, Tyler Jackson threw a two-hit, complete game shutout to hold down the Commodores’ potent offense and keep the Tigers alive in the Clemson Regional on Sunday night.
No. 1 seed Clemson (42-20) and No. 2 seed Vanderbilt (35-23-1) will play today to see which team advances to the super regionals.
Tyler Jackson (9-1) shut down a Vanderbilt offense that had put up 24 runs and 34 hits in its first two regional games.
Chase Pinder put the Tigers ahead for good with RBI double in the first inning. Weston Jackson had a solo homer in the sixth and a two-run double in the ninth.
It was the end of a long, successful day for Clemson, which fell into the loser’s bracket after losing to Vanderbilt 9-4 on Saturday. Earlier, Clemson waited out a nearly five-hour rain delay before beating UNC Greensboro 6-3 prior to the Vanderbilt win.
n LSU 5, Rice 0: At Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Eric Walker took a shutout into the ninth inning, and the Tigers beat the Owls for their 23rd NCAA regional crown Sunday night.
Walker (8-1), a freshman, struck out eight, walked none — never reaching even a three-ball count — and allowed seven hits as LSU (46-17) won its 14th-straight game.
LSU will ride that winning streak into next weekend’s Super Regional round, where it will play host to Southern Mississippi or Mississippi State.
Fielding and throwing errors by Rice (33-31) in the second helped LSU take a 3-0 lead, with all runs unearned.
The Tigers added another run in the third, when Kramer Robertson doubled and later scored on Antoine Duplantis’ sacrifice fly. Robertson also drove in a run with a fielder’s choice in the fourth.
Walker gave up his last two hits to open the ninth and was relieved by Zack Hess, who struck out the side.
Addison Moss (3-2) took the loss.
n Florida State 8, Auburn 7, 10 innings: At Tallahassee, Florida, the Seminoles forced a deciding game in the Tallahassee Regional after rallying past the Tigers in 10 innings on Sunday night.
The winning run scored when JC Flowers was hit by a pitch by Calvin Coker on a 0-2 count with the bases loaded. Florida State (42-21) will try to reach the Super Regional for the 16th time today. Auburn (37-25) hasn’t made the Super Regional since 1999.
Auburn trailed 6-4 going into the ninth but scored three runs to take the lead. Josh Anthony provided the key hit: a two-out, two-run single with the bases loaded to give the Tigers a brief advantage. The Seminoles sent the game into extra innings when Taylor Walls walked with two outs and scored on a Dylan Busby triple.
Florida State scored five in the second — including a three-run home run by Busby — to take a 6-2 lead.
Drew Carlton (4-4) got the win in relief. Andrew Mitchell (5-4), who walked two batters in the 10th, took the loss.
Quincy Nieporte had three of the Seminoles’ 10 hits. Jonah Todd and Blake Logan had two hits apiece for Auburn.
n Kentucky 8, North Carolina State 6: At Lexington, Kentucky, Zach Reks and Riley Mahan had two RBIs, Tristan Pompey had three hits to help the Wildcats beat the Wolfpack and force a deciding game in the Lexington Regional on Sunday night.
Facing its second NCAA tournament elimination game of the day, No. 1 seed Kentucky (42-21) broke a 3-3 tie with Marcus Carson’s solo home run in the bottom of the fourth. Kentucky tacked on four more in the sixth as Reks and Luke Becker singled in runs, Mahan drew a bases-loaded walk, and Kole Cottam scored on a wild pitch.
Joe Dunand’s three-run homer in the seventh brought No. 3 seed N.C. State (36-24) within 8-6 before Logan Salow relieved winner Chris Machamer (2-0) and shut out the Wolfpack from there for his 12th save, striking out four in 2 2/3 innings. Kentucky’s win sets up a third meeting between the schools in Monday night’s regional championship with a Super Regional berth at stake.
n Earlier in the day, Riley Mahan had four hits, including a sixth-inning grand slam, left-hander Zack Thompson allowed six hits and Kentucky beat Indiana 14-9 to avoid elimination.
Mahan also singled in the first run as the Wildcats had 18 hits.
Mahan’s blast to right field capped a big inning that included Tristan Pompey’s two-run double for a 10-1 lead. Kole Cottam had three RBIs, including a fourth-inning home run, and Marcus Carson also homered for the Wildcats.
Thompson (8-2) struck out seven and walked one in seven innings. Cal Krueger (5-2) took the loss.
Second-seeded Indiana (34-24-2) scored five runs in the ninth as Craig Dedelow hit a two-run home run, Luke Miller singled in two runs and Christopher Lowe singled in one.
n Bethune-Cookman 6, Florida 2: At Gainesville, Florida, Nate Sterijevski had four hits and Bethune-Cookman forced a deciding game in the Gainesville Regional with a victory Sunday.
Three of Sterijevski’s hits resulted in four RBIs for the Wildcats, including a two-run single in the eighth that extended their lead to 5-2.
Bethune-Cookman (36-24) came into the NCAA tournament with only two wins in 15 appearances, but it won three games this weekend. No. 1 seed and No. 3 Florida (44-17), which had won eight-straight regional games dating back to 2015, is trying to advance to the Super Regional for the third-straight year.
TJ Densmore (2-1), who was the Wildcats’ second pitcher, earned the win with 3 2/3 innings of shutout ball. Anthony Maldonado didn’t allow a hit in the final four innings to get his first save.
Florida starting pitcher Brady Singer (7-5) went 7 1/3 innings and allowed five runs (four earned) on 10 hits. Deacon Liput’s bases-loaded single in the second accounted for Florida’s runs.
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