FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Homers are a Hogs’ best friend.
Four round trippers, including a grand slam by Cayden Wallace, powered No. 3 Arkansas (10-3) to a 10-1 win against UIC (4-8) on Saturday afternoon at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The Razorbacks clinched their third weekend series of the season in Saturday’s win. Arkansas will go for the four-game sweep of UIC at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow on SEC Network+.
Home runs by Wallace, Chris Lanzilli, Brady Slavens and Michael Turner accounted for nine of the Razorbacks’ 10 runs on the afternoon. Lanzilli hit a three-run tater, his first as a Razorback, in the third inning to give Arkansas an early 3-0 lead.
Slavens stepped into the batter’s box immediately after him and poked an 0-1 pitch over the wall in left, extending the Hogs’ lead to four with his back-to-back jack. Wallace’s second career grand slam in the sixth gave Arkansas a comfortable 9-1 cushion.
Turner tacked on another run with his third blast of the season in the sixth. The graduate transfer from Kent State went 4-for-4 with two RBI and a walk on the day, raising his batting average to a team-leading .419.
Hagen Smith, meanwhile, started on the mound and turned in five strong innings of one-run ball. The true freshman struck out eight, one shy of his career high, while giving up four hits and issuing three walks.
Arkansas’ bullpen was superb in relief behind the arms of Zebulon Vermillion, Elijah Trest and Evan Gray, who closed out the ballgame to secure Saturday’s series-clinching win. The threesome combined for four hitless innings with seven strikeouts as the Razorback pitching staff totaled 15 strikeouts on the afternoon.