There’s a saying old baseball men like to use when a team stops pressing and just plays. They call it letting the game come to you.
For most of Friday night at Sewell-Thomas Stadium, Arkansas looked like a team that was doing anything but that.
The Razorbacks were tight at the plate, leaving runs on the bases and watching Alabama’s Tyler Fay work through their lineup like a man who had somewhere to be after the game.
The Crimson Tide were good at home this year — real good — and it showed.
But somewhere around the eighth inning, something shifted.
Maybe it was Camden Kozeal stepping in against Matthew Heiberger and sending a ball 350 feet to left field on a leadoff at-bat with the Hogs trailing 3-1.
Maybe it was Nolan Souza doubling down the right field line and Zack Stewart following with a single through the right side to tie it up.
Or maybe it was just a baseball game doing what baseball games do by turning on you when you least expect it.
Whatever it was, Arkansas scored six times in that eighth inning and beat ninth-ranked Alabama 7-5 to snap an 18-game home winning streak that was the longest in college baseball this season.
The Razorbacks improved to 22-13 and 6-7 in the SEC. The Crimson Tide, who hadn’t lost at home since Opening Day against Washington State, dropped to 26-9 and 8-5 in conference play.
It wasn’t always pretty. But then again, road wins in Tuscaloosa rarely are.
Dave Van Horn had said at the start of the week that his upperclassmen needed to step up at the plate.
You get the feeling he’d been holding onto that thought for a little while.
Through seven innings Friday, Van Horn’s lineup managed just one run on a fifth-inning RBI double from Kozeal that scored Christian Turner, who’d beaten the shift with a single and gone first to third on Carter Rutenbar’s two-out base hit.
Rutenbar got thrown out at the plate trying to score what would’ve been the go-ahead run and that was that for a good while.
Hunter Dietz was doing everything he could on the mound. He worked a career-high 107 pitches, struck out nine and gave up just three hits.
The only runs against him were a pair of solo home runs — Eric Hines going 425 feet over the scoreboard in the second with a 110 mph exit velocity and Brady Neal going 379 feet to left-center in the sixth.
Two swings. Two runs. That was all Alabama needed for most of the night.
Then the eighth inning happened.
After Kozeal’s leadoff homer cut it to 3-2, Brennan Holt made a strong play at second base to rob Ryder Helfrick of a base hit.
Souza doubled. Stewart singled him home. Tie game. Kuhio Aloy came up and doubled past third base and Alabama went to closer Hagan Banks. He made the pitch he needed except Justin Lebron couldn’t handle it.
Lebron, who Baseball America rates as the fourth-best prospect in this year’s MLB Draft, committed a fielding error and a throwing error on the same ground ball.
Pinch runner Landon Schaefer scored from third on the first miscue. Aloy came home on the errant throw. Arkansas led 5-3.
TJ Pompey put the finishing touch on it with a two-run homer 383 feet to left field on the second pitch he saw from Banks.
Just like that, a 3-1 deficit had become a 7-3 lead and Sewell-Thomas Stadium had gone real quiet.
It didn’t stay quiet for long. Ethan McElvain came out for the ninth and hit Fowler with a 2-2 pitch, then Lebron and Neal singled.
Neal’s two-run hit made it 7-5 and the bullpen phone rang again.
Parker Coil answered it. He came on, stranded Neal at second and struck out Hines swinging to end the game and earn the save.
The Razorbacks had built a lead late on the road and held it, which is the kind of thing that sounds simple enough until you’ve watched enough baseball to know it isn’t.
Gabe Gaeckle got the win after allowing one run in his lone inning. Heiberger took the loss after giving up four runs — two earned — on four hits and a walk.
The series continues Saturday at 4 p.m. on SEC Network. Arkansas’ll have a chance to take it.
One night at a time. That’s how road trips work.
