The UCA Baseball program has a new career home run king.

In the third inning of the second game of the Bears’ series at Lipscomb, junior outfielder Zeb Allen smashed a ball over the outfield fence for the 25th time in his Central Arkansas career.

This breaks the previous record for home runs hit in a career, which stood for nearly 20 seasons and was previously held by Chris Houk. 

Houk hit 24 home runs in his four seasons at UCA from 2005 to 2008.

Allen, a class of 2023 graduate from Fort Smith Southside high school, committed to Central Arkansas in November of 2021. 

In his true freshman season at UCA in 2024, Allen played in 55 games and led the team in batting average, including the first 4 home runs of his record breaking total. 

Allen more than doubled his home run output in 2025, sending 9 balls out of the park in his sophomore campaign.

A scorching hot start to this season for Allen, including a 2 homer game in the first weekend, and a stretch in March that saw him go deep in 6 of 9 games, put Allen within striking distance of the record. 

Allen tied the record Friday, April 3 at the University of North Alabama, with a game tying homer to deep right field in the seventh inning. 

After his record breaking game, Allen took the opportunity to express his gratitude to the UCA program and coaches. 

Allen said, “I’m just blessed to be a Bear honestly…I’m very thankful to Coach [Nick] Harlan and the trust that he’s put in me and the way that I’ve kind of been able to come into that leadership role this year and it’s just been awesome to see, especially when we’re winning like this.”

With the Bears just a game out of second place in the ASUN Gold division standings, Allen is looking to add to his record home run total in an effort to help the Bears make a push for the top of the standings.