The final home game of the season became an afternoon of batting practice for Northwest Arkansas, which battered nearly every pitcher the Travelers put on the mound — and two players who normally stand behind them.
The Naturals collected 29 hits, scored in six innings and buried Arkansas 24-4 on Sunday at Dickey-Stephens Park. They struck for four runs in the first, seven in the third and eight in the ninth, turning the home finale into a rout long before the last outs arrived.
Sammy Siani offered Arkansas one bright spot amid the wreckage. He went 3-for-4 with two home runs and three RBIs, giving him three homers over the final two games of the series. His fourth and fifth home runs of the season produced three of the Travelers’ four runs.
By the time Siani first connected, Arkansas trailed by 12.
Northwest Arkansas opened with three straight hits against Jason Ruffcorn. Javier Vaz’s ground-ball single to center brought home Luke Pelzer, Spencer Nivens followed later in the inning with a ground-rule double, and two productive outs stretched the lead to 4-0.
The Naturals added another run in the second before the game broke open in the third. Ruffcorn surrendered a double to Connor Scott and a run-scoring double to Justin Johnson, then a sacrifice fly to Angel Acosta. He departed after allowing nine earned runs in 2⅔ innings and fell to 0-4.
Ty Cummings inherited two runners and immediately faced Sam Kulasingam. Swinging at the first pitch, Kulasingam drove the ball deep toward right-center, beyond Siani’s pursuit at the wall. The three-run homer made it 10-0, and Northwest Arkansas added two more runs before the inning ended.
Kulasingam was the centerpiece of an overwhelming afternoon for the Naturals. He went 6-for-7 with two home runs and eight RBIs, finishing his first three innings with three hits and four runs driven in. His second homer, another drive that carried over the right-field wall in the sixth, pushed Northwest Arkansas ahead 16-2.
Siani’s response began in the fourth. With Hunter Fitz-Gerald aboard and two outs, he lifted a ball toward right-center. Kulasingam chased it to the wall but ran out of room, and the two-run homer finally put Arkansas on the board.
The Travelers scored twice more in the sixth. Josh Caron sent a ball toward third and raced into the inning with a triple, then came home on Connor Charping’s sacrifice fly. Siani followed with a hard line drive to right that cleared the wall for the first two-homer game of his career.
Those swings gave the home crowd something to carry from an otherwise punishing finale. Arkansas finished with nine hits, but Northwest Arkansas reliever Tyson Guerrero kept the Travelers scoreless over the final two innings after Felix Arronde allowed four earned runs in five innings to earn the win.
The Naturals’ lead had already grown steadily through the middle innings before the ninth turned unruly. With shortstop Josh Hood on the mound, Justin Johnson opened the scoring with a solo homer to left-center. Northwest Arkansas kept stringing together extra-base hits, singles and a sacrifice fly, and Scott capped the eight-run inning with a three-run shot to right.
Hood was charged with eight earned runs in two-thirds of an inning before Austin St. Laurent moved from the lineup to the mound for the final out. St. Laurent, who had two hits including a double at the plate, retired the last batter he faced after allowing a single.
Johnson finished 5-for-6 with a homer, a double and five RBIs. Scott added three hits, including a homer and a double, and drove in four.
By the end, the contrast was stark: Northwest Arkansas had three players with at least three hits and four RBIs, while Siani stood almost alone against the wave. His two home runs supplied the Travelers’ best moments, but they could only interrupt a finale controlled from the opening inning by the Naturals.