BATON ROUGE, La. The No. 4 Arkansas Razorbacks hit three solo home runs and dialed up a three-run eighth inning right when they needed it Friday night to help them take the 5-4 series-opening victory from the LSU Tigers in Alex Box Stadium.
LSU (26-20, 10-12 SEC) had the tying run on third and the winning run on first in the bottom of the ninth inning, but junior Jake Reindl struck out the final two batters to close out his fifth save of the year and give the Razorbacks (33-13, 14-8 SEC) their fifth win in a row, fourth in conference play.
Before Reindls clutch performance in the ninth, the Hogs put together a three-run eighth to take its third lead of the game. Junior Eric Cole started the rally by hitting his second home run of the game, pulling the team within one. Then, sophomore Evan Lee and senior Jared Gates both came up with clutch two-out RBI singles to push their team ahead for good. Both Lee and Gates were hitless before those at-bats.
With the victory, Arkansas won its first game in Baton Rouge since 2014 and its eighth one-run game of the 2018 season. The win also keeps it atop the SEC Western Division and expands its lead over Ole Miss to two games.
The Hogs and Tigers will play game two of the three-game series on Saturday at Alex Box Stadium with first pitch set for 7 p.m. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.
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