Dave Van Horn proud of Arkansas for winning share of SEC title despite disappointing end in final game

Saturday was a day of mixed emotions for Arkansas‘ baseball team as the Razorbacks dropped their series finale against Vanderbilt in a 7-6 loss but did secure a share of the SEC championship. It’s the Razorbacks’ fourth SEC regular season title, as they split the championship with the Florida Gators who also finished the regular season with an impressive 20-10 record in conference play.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn spoke about the special day, breaking down how he balanced the task of trying to lead his team to victory and learning they were conference champions in the middle of the ballgame.

“Just really proud of the team,” Van Horn said. “The week before SEC play we talked about the importance of when you get a chance to win a game, win it. Win that Sunday game, you get a chance to sweep and we did that three times or so this year and they all count the same. Once we got to the fourth inning today we found out that Georgia won and we had won the west and the SEC championship and I think that was about the time (Will) McEntire was rolling along pretty good. We scored a few runs, took the lead by two and we thought we were going to be safe and get him out.”

A Georgia win over LSU in Athens Saturday afternoon secured Arkansas their share of the conference championship, as the Tigers finish the regular season 19-10 in conference play. McEntire came in relief for starting pitcher Hunter Hollan in the third inning, pitching 2.1 scoreless innings before Van Horn decided to let pitchers like Parker Coil, Gage Wood, and Cody Adcock get some work on the mound.

“I think if we had left him in he probably could’ve gone another couple innings, but we just didn’t want to chance it. We thought well, we’ll get through this inning with these young guys that want to do it, saying they want the ball and it didn’t go very good obviously,” Van Horn admitted. “We had our opportunities though, we had a runner on first and second, nobody out, top of the order up and we didn’t move anybody around so that was disappointing. I think we had an inning in the third inning, we had runners at first and second, nobody out, we didn’t score. In the four run inning it was really good to see those two out base hits, stolen bases, it was good baseball right there.”

The Razorbacks would go on to give up their two-run lead in the sixth inning and never recovered, but their conference title security definitely impacted their play style in their regular season finale.

“But just really excited to be SEC champs, so hard to do, and share that crown with Florida, we didn’t play Florida. So it’s kind of mixed emotions right now, frustrated because we lost the game, felt like we could have won it. Wasn’t like we weren’t trying to win it, but I think if we would’ve known that LSU would be Georgia we definitely would have pitched differently going into the sixth inning,” Van Horn said.

The Razorbacks will face the winner of Tennessee vs. Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament on Wednesday in a matchup that’s time is yet to be determined but will be airing on SEC Network.