Up 5-3 with one out in the ninth over LSU, all Arkansas needed was two more outs, and its season would live another day. Just two more outs, and the dream of winning the first national championship in program history would survive.
With runners on first and second, freshman lefty Cole Gibler got the ground ball he desired. Steven Milam punched it straight into the dirt and right at Razorbacks shortstop and SEC Player of the Year Wehiwa Aloy. The tailor-made 6-4-3 double play was on the platter; all Aloy had to do was snatch it up and eat it.
Instead, he decided to throw to third to get the force out at that base, thinking he didn’t have enough time to turn two. Replay proved him wrong, however. The ESPN broadcast repeatedly showed that Aloy had plenty of time—almost eons—to toss the ball to second baseman Cam Kozeal, who then would have had even more time to relay the baseball to first. If that scenario had played out, the game would have been over, and Arkansas would be game-planning for a winner-take-all rematch with the Tigers on Thursday.
It was a foolish mistake, frankly. With Arkansas up by two, the run represented at third if Aloy had just thrown to second wouldn’t have mattered. Sigh. It didn’t happen that way, but the Hogs were still leading and just needed one more out. Only one. How hard could that possibly be?
According to Arkansas left fielder Charles Davalan, incredibly hard. LSU’s cleanup hitter Luis Hernandez, who had come up big in multiple moments for the Tigers throughout the postseason, hit a sinking liner to left, which Davalan misread off the bat. He initially took a couple of steps back, but when he realized the ball had topspin, he frantically attempted to regather himself. It was too late. As he clumsily dove toward the baseball, the ball clanked off his right shoulder and ricocheted toward the foul line. Both runners scored, and Hernandez scampered to second base. Brutal.
As catastrophic as that was, the game was still not over. Yes, the game had been knotted up in devastating fashion, and the air had been sucked out of the Arkansas dugout, but the contest was just tied. If the Hogs could just get—say it with me—one more out, then they’d be heading to extra innings with a chance to redeem themselves.
Head coach Dave Van Horn made the move to the bullpen at this point, pulling Gibler and replacing him with Aiden Jimenez, one of the most trusted relievers Arkansas employs. It would be up to him to retire arguably LSU’s best hitter, Jared Jones, and send the game to extras.
The game plan against Jones seemed clear from the very first pitch: only throw sliders, but don’t give him one that’s too juicy. Jones spat on the first one that was low and took a hack at the second that probably caught a little too much of the plate for Jimenez’s liking. The third missed, setting up a 2-1 pitch that was crucial. Everybody knew it. Land this one for a quality strike, and the two teams were most likely headed to the 10th. Throw it for a ball, and Jones most likely heads to first with a walk, setting up freshman Josh Pearson as the man deciding the fate of the game. But throw it for a less-than-quality strike, and Jones probably smashes it and ends it.
It was the latter scenario that transpired.
Jones hammered a slider that caught too much of the zone right up the middle. Arkansas second baseman and Omaha native Cam Kozeal leaped with all his might to try to grab it, but the ball tipped off the very end of his glove and trickled into center field. Hernandez scampered around third and scored, and LSU was moving on. Arkansas was done, and the curse lived.
Boy, there’s a lot that can be said.
First, Arkansas should have won that game. Aloy should have thrown to second for the double play, and Davalan should have caught the ball in left. If just one of those two things happens, I’m not writing this article right now.
Second, the baseball program in Fayetteville is cursed. Long soliloquies have been written about the collapse in 2018, when that team was just one out away from a national title but failed to catch a foul pop-up and wound up losing instead. That’s just one chapter in the many failures in Omaha, as the Hogs under Van Horn have reached the College World Series eight times since 2004 and have won zero national championships.
Does a team that’s not cursed throw away a perfect opportunity for a game-ending double play? Does a team that hasn’t been bewitched by some ancient coven have a left fielder slip and miss an easy fly ball? Does a team that’s not jinxed continue to falter over and over in the biggest spot in all of college baseball? I don’t think so.
The talent has been there. Arguably the best coach in the sport has been there. The fanbase has been there. Yet, nothing. For all the winning that has happened in Fayetteville over the past two decades, not a single piece of hardware from Omaha is in the trophy case. That hurts. It hurts a ton.
That bottom of the ninth inning will forever taint what was one of the most special groups Arkansas baseball has ever seen. From the top of the order with Davalan to the bottom with Justin Thomas Jr., who put the Hogs ahead in the top half of the ninth with a clutch single, the pieces were there. The pitching was electric, with arms like Zach Root and Gage Wood headlining a staff that certainly had what it took to win it all.
But when everything was said and done, the skeletons in the closet that have haunted the Razorbacks for years emerged once again. When the lights got as bright as they possibly could, Arkansas failed to rise to the occasion. Sloppy, silly mistakes that even a middle school baseball team knows not to make emerged out of nowhere, and before anybody knew it, the season was done, and everybody was sad.
That’s the final word that beckons to me regarding this loss: sadness. Nobody deserves anything, least of all in sports. But Dave Van Horn deserves a title. He’s done everything short of climbing to the top of the college baseball mountain, and I believe there was a large contingent of people who thought that maybe 2025 would be the season that crescendoed an amazing career. And while the roster was amazing and the coaching staff was fantastic, the ending remained the same.
For the 127th year in a row, Arkansas will not win a national championship. And that, my friends, is a real shame.