Dave Van Horn: Arkansas didn't deserve to win series vs. Kentucky

Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn gave a blunt take on his team’s performance in a series against Kentucky this weekend. The Razorbacks dropped their second straight game on Sunday by a score of 7-4 to lose a series for only the second time in SEC play this season.

Arkansas managed just seven hits in 32 at bats in Sunday’s loss while leaving 11 on base. The No. 8 Wildcats jumped out to a 6-0 lead by the end of the fourth inning and that deficit proved too great for the Razorbacks to come back from. It was a similar story in Saturday’s game as Kentucky rolled to an 11-3 win.

Van Horn showed his frustrations postgame by saying that Arkansas “didn’t deserve to win this series.” However, he also noted that it’s been an arduous past month for the team.

“No excuses,” he said. “We’ve played a lot of games in the last four weeks. Done pretty well. None of our midweek games have been against easy teams. We’ve had to play hard and pitch hard. It’s tough losing the series, especially on the road like this. We felt like if we could’ve just swung the bats a little bit better. But we didn’t deserve to win this series honestly.

“We have finals this week. Give the guys a few days off, get it back going and hopefully play better against Mississippi State this weekend.”

Sunday’s loss marked the first time that Arkansas has lost a series to Kentucky since 2012.

Losing the series was a big blow for the Razorbacks as it allowed the Wildcats to jump to first place in the SEC standings with an 18-6 conference record. Arkansas is still No. 1 in the SEC West with a 17-7 record against league opponents.

Peyton Stovall led the Razorbacks by going 3-for-5 at the plate for his fourth straight game with multiple hits. He has been the leader for Arkansas so far this season with 55 hits and eight home runs with a batting average of .362.

If Arkansas is to get where it wants to go, however, it will need others to step up alongside Stovall, especially in games like this. Fortunately the Razorbacks have a couple more weeks of regular season play remaining to sort things out.

Arkansas has the next four days off before beginning a series against Mississippi State this weekend. The first pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. CT on Friday.