Hagen Smith Is The Strikeout King For Arkansas
We would witness history for Arkansas Baseball in game one against Texas A&M. That history would be the all-time career strikeouts for Arkansas Baseball. Hagen Smith, who has amazed the nation with his pitching prowess this season, would enter the night 10 strikeouts shy of the record. That record, of 346, was held by Nick Schmidt, who pitched for the Raorbakcks from 2005 to 2007.
As we mentioned, Smith would enter the game just a few shy and it would not take him long to get the count started. Smith would strike out the side in the first with all three batters swinging. He would follow this up with a ground out and strikeout to bring his count to four by the end of the 2nd inning.
Smith would whiff one Aggie in the 3rd and two in the 4th to be creeping up on his 10 as he was now at 7 strikeouts on the night. What are the odds that Smith could strike out the side in the 5th to capture the record?
Well, that is exactly what he would do as he struck out three Aggies in the bottom half of the 5th to take the record, at 346, for most career strikeouts for Arkansas Baseball in program history. Hagen wasn’t done there as he would strike out three more in the bottom of the 6th, to bring his final total to 14 strikeouts.
Smith would finish the night with a stat line of 6 innings pitched allowing only 2 hits and 14 strikeouts. Hagen would throw 63 strikes out of his 98 total pitches thrown. The new “King of Strikeouts” would allow one double with 3 flyouts and 2 ground outs in his 21 batters faced. In the 2024 season, Smith now has 150 strikeouts thus far.
Arkansas will look to win one game of the series to clinch the SEC West crown for the 5th time in the last 6 seasons, With a win, the Razorbacks would have won the West Division 8 times in program history including 7 times under Dave Van Horn. One win would also give Arkansas their 5th 20- win season in the SEC in program history.
