Cowboy baseball opens with a loss to Arkansas
The 13th year for Oklahoma State baseball with Josh Holliday at the helm is underway. The Cowboys fell to No. 5 Arkansas in Arlington, Texas on Friday night in the Shriner’s Children’s College Showdown at Globe Life Field.
Starting pitcher Hudson Barrett took the loss at OSU fell by a 12-2 margin. The lefty worked 4 and 2/3 innings and fanned six and surrendered six runs – three earned – to the Hogs.
Garrett Shull led the Cowboy offense with a homer, which was one of just six Cowboy hits in the season-opener.
OSU fell behind early due to a two-run homer by Ryder Helfrick in the bottom of the first. Helfrick did it again with a solo shot in the bottom of the third that pushed the Arkansas lead to 3-0. Shull’s two-run homer in the top of the fifth closed the gap to 3-2 before the Cowboy bats went silent. In a common trend the last few seasons, OSU struck out 15 times in the game that ended in the 8th via run-rule.
The Razorbacks answered with three runs in the with two outs in the bottom of the fifth to push their lead to 6-2 and never looked back from there.
The Pokes have an opportunity to bounce back with an early season edition of the Bedlam rivalry on Saturday afternoon. It’s part of a hugely busy weekend for OSU sports as Cowgirl softball, Cowboy and Cowgirl basketball all play on Saturday, while wrestling travels to Virginia Tech to take on the 6th-ranked Hokies on Sunday. Bedlam renews at 3 p.m. in the second of three games in the Shriner’s Classic. They will close out the Classic with a matchup with with No. 23 Vanderbilt on Sunday morning in Arlington. First pitch is 10:30 am. for that one. All Shriner’s Classic games are broadcast by FloCollege.
