Arkansas Blanks Creighton

Sunday, June 3rd 2007, 7:18 pm

By: News On 6

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) _ Arkansas' Brian Walker hit solo home runs in the fifth and seventh innings Sunday to lead the Razorbacks to a 6-0 victory over Creighton in an elimination game of the Fayetteville Regional of the NCAA baseball tournament.

The win put Arkansas (43-20) in a game Sunday evening against Oklahoma State (40-19) that could determine the regional championship _ if the Cowboys win. If the Razorbacks win, however, the two teams _ each with one defeat in the double-elimination tournament _ would meet again on Monday for the championship.

The winner of the Fayetteville Regional will play in a super-regional against the winner of another regional being played at Columbia, Mo., for a berth in the eight-team College World Series at Omaha, Neb.

Walker, who had only 2 hits in his last 20 at-bats before Sunday, went 4-for-4 for the Razorbacks, including his 10th and 11th homers of the season, with two RBIs and four runs scored. The four-hit day was Walker's second of his career.

Arkansas starter Nick Schmidt (11-3) picked up the win after going seven innings, striking out four batters, but hitting four others.

Arkansas scored its first run in the third inning when Walker went home on an RBI double by Sean Jones. In the seventh inning, after Walker's second homer of the game, Jake Dugger scored on a suicide squeeze on Jones' sacrifice bunt to make the score 4-0. Arkansas scored its last two runs in the ninth inning on hits by Dugger and Logan Forsythe.

Bluejays starter Ben Mancuso (10-3) was tagged with the loss after giving up two runs on five hits in six innings on the mound for Creighton (45-16).

Creighton leadoff hitter Robbie Knight set an NCAA record in the first inning when he was hit by a pitch from Schmidt. It was the 34th time this season Knight had been hit by a pitch, exceeding the 33 times Andrew Slater was hit by pitched balls when he played for Richmond in 1997. Knight was also hit again in the fifth inning, raising the record to 35.