There's no more epic way to win a softball game than with a two-out walkoff home run. That's what Arkansas did to win its weekend series against Florida
Arkansas baseball had a brutal weekend at home against Florida to finish the month of March. Arkansas softball fared a lot better. On Sunday, in the rubber game of the series, Arkansas' Dakota Kennedy hit a two-out, three-run walkoff home run in the bottom of the seventh to give the Razorbacks a 6-4 win in the game. After Arkansas won the series opener on Friday and lost the second game on Saturday, UA needed to bounce back and make sure it won the weekend. Kennedy's blast did the trick for a resilient team which stabilized its season. On3 Sports has more details:
“'We really do feel like if we have an out that we have a chance,' (Arkansas coach Courtney) Deifel said. 'You feel that in the top of the order they are seeing it well. It was really amazing to watch. It was not very good there for a while for us. We did not look like ourselves and we weren’t fighting like ourselves. You could just feel a difference in the fourth or fifth inning and it felt like it was just a matter of time.'
"Kennedy kept calm as she stepped up to the plate with two runners on and felt that she owed something to her teammates.
“'I was just thinking that the pressure was on the other team and not on me,' Kennedy said. “My teammates did their job all game, so just being able to be there for them. I was just looking for a pitch I could hit and I was not sure if it was going to go out off of the bat. It just happened to be the first pitch and I don’t not know that it was totally the plan, but definitely was just about controlling my breath and looking for a pitch I could hit.'
"Freshman Saylor Timmerman’s efforts kept the Gators at bay and helped put Arkansas in position to win, posting one of her finest outing as a Razorback. She twirled 6 innings of 3-hit ball in relief allowing only 1 earned run and striking out 5 batters.
“'I saw a ton of guts,' Deifel said of her talented young pitcher. 'Florida is very disciplined (at the plate) and it was a tough weekend everything considering. Saylor dug in and just really stuck to her spins, trusted her spins through the zone and went toe-to-toe with a really great offense.'”
Arkansas now has a 30-5 overall record, 5-4 in the SEC. The Razorbacks entered the series ranked in the top 10 and should stay there.