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Best Of The Decade: Top Razorback Moments

Best Of The Decade: Top Razorback Moments

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Arkansas Athletics Highlights 10 Years of Excelence From the Arkansas Razorbacks

www.arkansasrazorbacks. com

FAYETTEVILLE — With the decade coming to a close, it’s time to celebrate the top Razorback moments that made the past 10 years memorable.

Below, in no particular order, are some of the best moments from Arkansas athletics.

• Diamond Hogs’ Rainsoaked Marathon Win It isn’t often that a game scheduled to start in the afternoon ends at 3 in the morning. Arkansas and Missouri State defied logic, by playing a game that did exactly that. It was a strange night all the way through, a six-hour romp that included a reset in the third inning — at 12:35 a.m. The Razorbacks were ultimately victorious in the 2017 Fayetteville Regional when Arkansas pitcher Evan Lee struck out Missouri State’s Justin Paulsen in the rain to end the game.

The final score ended up being 11-10 in favor of Arkansas. Emotions ran high throughout the game, including a point at 2:30 in the morning when the rain began to pick up again.

• Razorback Women’s Track & Field/Cross Country: Calendar Sweep It had only been accomplished by two other programs (Oregon and Texas) until the Razorbacks joined the party, holding all three national championships at the same time is an incredibly rare feat but the Hogs did just that in 2019. Arkansas started the calendar year with the indoor national championship in Birmingham, Alabama followed by the outdoor national title in Austin, Texas and wrapping up the sweep with the program’s first-ever cross country national championship in Terre Haute, Indiana this fall.

The three national championships brought the track and field programs’ combined total to 46 with the women’s program improving their total to five.

• Razorback Men’s Golf Claims First SEC Title Arkansas finished stroke play at the 2019 SEC Championship in seventh place and 39 strokes behind leader Auburn.

However, the slates were swept clean as the top eight teams advanced to match play. The Razorbacks needed two extra holes to dispatch Vanderbilt in the quarterfinal. Later in the day, Arkansas would need one extra hole to defeat Texas A& M in the semifinal. In the championship match versus Auburn , William Buhl and Tyson Reeder gave Arkansas two quick points. The Tigers got on the board with a win in match five. Matches three (Luis Garza) and four (Julian Perico) came down to the end. Garza was tied with Jovan Rubula through 18 holes and were playing their first extra hole. Perico and Grayson Huff were tied through 17 holes before Perico hit a monster drive and two-putted from nine feet on the 18th hole to secure the program s second SEC Men s Golf championship and first since 1995.

• Benintendi Wins 2015 Golden Spikes Award University of Arkansas outfielder Andrew Benintendi won the 2015 Golden Spikes Award, given annually to the amateur baseball player who best displays “exceptional on-field ability and exemplary sportsmanship.” Benintendi hit .376./.488/.717 with a Division I leading 20 home runs. He also stole 24 bases in 28 attempts and drove in 58 runs. Benintendi was additionally named the SEC Player of the Year. The Red Sox selected Benintendi with the seventh overall pick.

• Razorback Swim & Dive: Hopkin’s Records & Schultz’s National Championship As a freshman, Brooke Schultz became the third Razorback to claim the 3-meter National Championship. Schultz set a personal- best at the NCAA Championships to claim the title. Also that season, Schultz was named SEC Diver of the Week seven times and was named SEC Female Diver of the Year, SEC Freshman Diver of the Year, All-SEC First Team and All-SEC Freshman Team.

Hopkin posted the fastest time in the nation this year in the 200 free with a time of 1:44.40 to break her own school record.

Her meet-record time also earned her a NCAA qualifier. Hopkin also posted the fifth-best performance in split history in the 200-medley relay, with a 20.76 anchor leg as the Hogs came in second with a time of 1:37.34. The senior went on to swim the fastest 100 free in the nation this year, touching the wall in 46.56.

This time was also good enough to get Hopkin the meet record, pool record, NCAA cut and automatically qualify her for NCAA’s Championship.

Hopkin additionally holds the fastest 50, 100, 200 free and the 100 fly all time performance record for Arkansas.

• “Henry Heave” Defeats Ole Miss One of the more legendary moments in Arkansas football history happened in Oxford, Mississippi in 2015, simply known as the Henry Heave. The underdog Razorbacks managed to force overtime at No. 19 Ole Miss thanks to a late touchdown pass from Brandon Allen to Dominique Reed but that simply set the stage for an all-time moment. The Rebels scored first in overtime and seemed to have the game on ice when an Allen pass intended for Hunter Henry was broken up to force 4th & 25. Razorback fans will never forget what happened next as Allen found Henry for 14 yards down the Ole Miss sideline but as he was being tackled Henry heaved the ball back over his head towards the original line of scrimmage where a waiting Alex Collins scooped up the deflected ball and rambled down to the 11-yard line on the opposite sideline for a first down. Two plays later Allen found Drew Morgan for a touchdown but instead of kicking a PAT to send the game to a second overtime, the Razorbacks went for two with Allen diving into the end zone for the game-winner.

• Lady Razorback’s Dungee Goes Off for 41 Points Dungee’s 41 against Auburn last season was historic in many ways. It was the most points ever scored against an SEC Opponent and just three points shy of the all-time women’s single-game points record. She also set several in-game records, including most free throws made (17), most points in a half (32), most free throws in a half (17), most points in a quarter (17) and most free throws made in a quarter (9).

• Lawson Dominates Outdoor Track Championships Any time you can match Jesse Owens in anything, you are in elite company.

In 2016 at the NCAA Outdoor Championships Jarrion Lawson did just that winning three individual titles. Lawson claimed the 100-meter championship in 10.22, the 200-meter title in 20.19 and won the long jump with a distance of 26 feet, 9 inches to match a feat only accomplished by Owens prior to that meet. Lawson’s performance helped him become the first and only Razorback to ever win the Bowerman Award.

• Qualls’s Dunk Defeats Kentucky With the game tied after Kentucky’s James Young made a 3-pointer with 10.5 seconds left, Ky Madden launched a 3-point attempt from the right wing with 2.9 seconds left. Michael Qualls sprinted in from the left corner.

The shot hit the back rim and Qualls, with 0.7 seconds left, caught and dunked the ball in one motion with 0.3 seconds left to lift Arkansas to an 87-85 overtime upset versus the No. 13 Wildcats in Bud Walton Arena.

• Lady Hogs Upset Texas A& M Arkansas punched its ticket to its first-ever SEC Championship game with one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the program, using a 17-0 burst to top No. 15 Texas A& M in the SEC Tournament Semifinal. Chelsea Dungee (17 points) Jailyn Mason (15 points) and Alexis Tolefree (11 points) led the way out of what was once a 16-point hole, while nine fourth-quarter turnovers forced was enough to get the Hogs into the SEC Final.

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