BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

The trip to Georgia this weekend had not been a pleasant one for No. 5 Arkansas.

The bottom four hitters in the Bulldogs order all homered against Razorback starter Will McEntire on Friday as Georgia rolled to a series-clinching win over Arkansas.

The Razorbacks (30-9, 11-6), who lost 7-3 to the the Bulldogs (22-17, 6-11) on Thursday, could not control the Georgia offense for the second straight night.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn did not try and sugarcoat things when asked what he told his team afterwards.

“Just that we’ve been out-played, pretty much in every aspect of the game, you know, fielding, hitting, base-running, pitching,” noted Van Horn, whose team swept visiting Tennessee last weekend.

“They’ve kind of gotten after us. It’s a long season. You can’t be all happy with what went on last week. You’ve got tomorrow, last week’s behind you. There’s no easy wins on the schedule.”

While Arkansas has had several injuries, including starting catcher Parker Rowland, Van Horn isn’t looking for excuses.

“Little bit, but you can’t use an excuse,” Van Horn said. “ We’ve got, starting catcher’s hurt. That’s been a little bit of an issue. It was an issue last night on the offensive side, maybe pinch hitting or whatever, but it is what it is. Other guys have to step up and they have to do a job. They’re wearing a Razorback uniform. They need to earn that thing. They need to be able to play at this level.”

The two losses put Arkansas a game ahead of No. 1 LSU in the the SEC Western Division pending the result of the Tigers’ game late Friday night at Ole Miss.

Van Horn made it clear that Georgia’s starters had out-pitched Arkansas in the first two games.

“Well, the pitcher, he threw really well,” Van Horn said. “We didn’t do a good job, obviously. It was two nights in a row that their starting pitcher has been a lot better than ours. Yesterday, combo-ed with the defense they got us early. Today they jumped on us and hit the ball out of the park.

“On the offensive side, we left runners out there early and didn’t have very many in the first few innings, but the ones we did have we didn’t do much with it.”

Georgia head coach Scott Strickland and his Bulldogs have won five of their last seven SEC games.

He got a great effort from starting pitcher Chuck Goldstein (2-1), who went six innings while allowing just three hits, walking no one and fanning six.

“We were going to send him back out of the seventh inning, but he’s really honest and sometimes I wish he wasn’t, but he was like ‘I’m done. I’m tired,” Strident

“That is three consecutive starts that he has gone his career long. The pitch count was really low. It was going to be his last inning.”

Arkansas starter Will McEntire (5-2) went four innings while giving uo six runs on six hits, three walks and six strikeouts and throwing 76 pitches, 49 for strikes.

“Well, he threw some good breaking balls early, but obviously they clubbed him in the second,” Van Horn said. “When he made a mistake, they hammered it. When he left it up or in. Those were all pull-side home runs. It was a good job of hitting by them.

“ What else can I say? It was pretty obvious.”

Cody Adcock and Zack Morris finished off the game for the Razorbacks.

Georgia jumped out to a 3-0 in the second inning when Cole Wagner and Sebastian Murrilo hit solo home runs and Mason LaPlante added a two-run blast.

That lead grew to 4-0 ion the fourth when Wagner’s RBI single plated Connor Tate.

Fernando Gonzalez made it 5-0 in the fifth when he hit a solo homer off McEntire.

That got pushed to 6-0 in the sixth when xxxxx Anderson’s single chase home LaPlante.

Arkansas’ Brady Slavens broke up the shutout in the eighth when his two-run homer cut his team’s deficit to 7-2.

Jace Bohrofen’s sacrifice fly capped the scoring when Hudson Polk scored later in the eighth.

Stricklin knows his team buried itself with early losses in SEC play, but is now trying to dig itself out.

“I am really, really proud of the way we played tonight,” Stricklin said. “Pitching, defense and timely hitting will get it done every time.”

“..We have dug this dang hole and now we have to dig out of it,” Stricklin said. “We just have two claw and dig it out and the way you do that is by winning games.

“We are not thinking about sweeping. We are just thinking about winning tomorrow.”

Van Horn confirmed lefty Hagen Smith would start on Saturday, something that Strickin is planing for in the series finale.

“They are going to throw Hagen Smith, their best guy,” Stricklin said. “He will throw tomorrow. He will start. They have not announced it yet, but he is really, really good. He is 93-95 left hander with with a great breaking ball, but we just have to go out and try to get another win.”