NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Second-ranked Arkansa (24-3, 6-1 SEC) handed No. 14 Vanderbilt (20-6, 4-3 SEC) its first home loss of the season, securing a 9-0 shutout victory in Friday night’s series opener at Hawkins Field in Nashville, Tenn., to win its sixth consecutive SEC game and shut out the Commodores in a home conference game for the first time since 2022.
The win marked Arkansas’ first shutout win against Vanderbilt since 2005, and the Hogs’ first shutout win against the Commodores in Nashville since 1994. Arkansas will go for the series win tomorrow when the two teams are scheduled to play at 2 p.m. Saturday on SEC Network+ with Kevin Ingram (play-by-play) and Andrew Harris (analyst) on the call.
With a series win this weekend, Arkansas would start SEC play with three straight series wins for the seventh time since joining the league in 1992. The Razorbacks also accomplished the feat in 2007, 2009, 2017, 2021, 2022 and 2024.
Cam Kozeal, a former Commodore, and Zach Root stole the show Friday night to help lead Arkansas to its 9-0 series-opening win. Kozeal went 3-for-5 with two home runs and five RBI in his return to Vanderbilt, where he played his true freshman season last year, while Root spun a career-long 7.2 shutout innings with seven strikeouts on the mound.
Arkansas opened the scoring in the top of the third on Nolan Souza’s RBI. Ryder Helfrick led off the inning with a triple, his team-leading second of the season, before coming home on Souza’s groundout to short to put the Hogs ahead, 1-0. Logan Maxwell, who finished Friday’s game with a pair of hits and a team-high three runs scored, cracked a leadoff home run, his career-high seventh of the season, in the fourth inning to extend the Razorbacks’ advantage to two runs.
After Brent Iredale, the next batter, drew a walk, Kozeal swatted his first of two homers to put Arkansas up, 4-0, before recording an out in the fourth. The Razorback first baseman’s third homer of the year traveled 398 feet to right center.
In Kozeal’s next at-bat in the sixth inning, he blasted a 368-foot solo shot, his fourth of 2025, to right to push the Hogs’ lead to five. The Omaha, Neb., native did not stop there, adding a two-run single in the ninth to collect his fourth and fifth RBI of the night and put the game out of reach as Arkansas’ advantage grew to a commanding nine-run lead.
Led by Root’s strong outing, the Razorback pitching staff combined for its first three-hit shutout since accomplishing the feat in the series opener at Auburn last season. Root, who became the first Arkansas pitcher to record back-to-back starts of at least seven innings since Connor Noland accomplished the feat in 2022, carried a no-hitter into the fifth.
The left-hander allowed three hits and issued three walks while racking up seven strikeouts during his 100-pitch start before turning the ball over to the Razorback bullpen. In relief of Root, right-handers Aiden Jimenez (0.1 IP) and Dylan Carter (1.0 IP) combined for 1.1 no-hit innings with a strikeout to lock down Arkansas’ series-opening 9-0 win.
New Vanderbilt Baseball Coaches ‘Want Big Leaguers’ When Recruiting
This season will mark five years since the last Men’s College World Series championship for the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Considering where the program was at not too long ago, that is an eternity.
The past three seasons have ended with Vanderbilt losing in the regional round of the MCWS, totaling a 4-6 record and not winning a single game last year in the Clemson Regional before being eliminated by Coastal Carolina.
Knowing he had to make a change, longtime coach who has the most wins in program history, Tim Corbin, brought in two new assistants who are looking to make their presence felt in Nashville.
First, Jayson King is coming from Dayton, leaving his post as the head coach there to take this assistant coaching job at a program he covets.
Next, Corbin hired away Duke’s recruiting coordinator, Ty Blankmeyer, to join the Commodores.
Both men had some eye-opening comments about the state of Vanderbilt baseball and how they are going to assist in getting this program back to the top of the college baseball world after the recent uncharacteristically early exits in the postseason.
King was pretty blunt about what he saw when he faced the Commodores as the head coach of Dayton.
“It wasn’t as athletic as I’d seen in the past. It’s still Vanderbilt, but we played here (in 2019) in a three-game set, and that was a different team, as far as the pitching and the position guys,” he said per Aria Gerson of The Tennessean.
Vanderbilt has put plenty of players into the MLB during Corbin’s run, and while that’s still the case, they are missing the high-end depth of talent this program once had.
Knowing that, Blankmeyer made his own blunt comment about what he’s going to do on the recruiting trail to improve upon that.
“You’ve got to have the physical ability to play at Vanderbilt. That’s the first thing, you have to be a pro potential player to come to Vanderbilt because we want big leaguers. That’s it,” he said.
That has to be music to the ears of every Commodores fan.
It will take a bit longer for Blankmeyer to have his impact felt on this program, but King is already looking to provide a boost to this lineup by improving their hitting approach, something that would go a long way in helping them compete in the SEC and for championships again.
