Baseball Walks Off Tennessee to Advance

May 20, 2015

HOOVER, Ala. – The 20th-ranked and fifth-seeded University of Arkansas baseball team (34-20) used a two-out walk-off double in the ninth inning by Michael Bernal to knock off Tennessee 2-1 (24-26) in the opening round of the SEC Tournament Tuesday evening at the Hoover Met.

With two outs and the bases empty in the ninth inning, Rick Nomura singled to right field and Bernal followed and roped a double down the left field line to send Nomura racing home from first base to send Arkansas into celebration with a 2-1 walk-off victory.

The walk-off win was the second of the year as the Razorbacks won their SEC Tournament opener for the third straight season. Arkansas advances to the double elimination portion of the championship and will take on fourth-seed Florida Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. CT on SEC Network.

For seven innings the storyline belonged to starting pitcher Trey Killian, who retired the first 14 Tennessee batters he faced and took a perfect game to the fifth inning before a two-out bloop single ended the perfection.

Killian lasted 7.2 innings and gave up just four hits and one run, before All-SEC first team selection Zach Jackson came out of the bullpen and stranded the go-ahead run in scoring position and worked a perfect ninth inning to improve to 5-0 on the season.

Game Notes

Arkansas improves to 10-11 all-time in SEC Tournament openers.
The Razorbacks move to 27-35 all-time in SEC Tournament games.
Arkansas improves to 2-0 against Tennessee in the SEC tournament and have won 15 of the last 19 meetings.
The Razorbacks pick up their third win of the year when tied after eight innings and second walk-off victory.
Arkansas has won nine of its last 10 games on the road.
The Razorback pitching staff has allowed two runs or less in 10 of the last 14 games.
Joe Serrano extended his reached base streak to 23 games and hitting streak to 10 games, while adding his 15th multi-hit game.
Tyler Spoon collected his 17th multi-hit game and fifth three hit performance.

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