Kendall Diggs on season-ending loss for Arkansas: 'It sucks'

The Arkansas Razorbacks 2024 college baseball season came to a surprising end in the regional round. The Razorbacks were one of the host teams this season and were also among a few eliminated before making it to the regional championship game.

Following their last game of the season, a 6-3 loss to Southeast Missouri State, head coach Dave Van Horn and a few of the players spoke during the postgame press conference, and right fielder Kendall Diggs gave his honest opinion about their season coming to an abrupt end.

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“Yeah, man, it sucks. We gave it all we had. But congrats to SEMO; they played a good game,” said Diggs.

“I love every single one of these guys. [I] appreciate all the coaches, the whole program, and everything they’ve done. Obviously, wished for a different outcome, but that didn’t happen.”

Arkansas started the Fayetteville regional strong with a blowout victory over the same Southeastern Missouri State program, 17-9. After that, the Razorbacks came up short against Kansas State in Game 4, falling 7-6 to the Wildcats.

As the outfielder mentioned above, the season did not end the way that he would have liked. Still, this does not diminish his love and appreciation for the Razorbacks program and his teammates.

Van Horn explains Arkansas’ poor performance at home to end the season

Also, following their elimination loss, Van Horn attempted to explain their poor home performance to end the season.

“Well, we didn’t pitch very good. I mean, that was pretty obvious last month,” opened Van Horn. “We were rolling pretty good early… you got two lefts and a right, and they’re all gonna give you innings; they’re all experienced. And then, all of a sudden, you can see a little crack in the armor. One got wild, one’s always having issues with his arm, and the steady was Smith. Smith is the guy. He was a rock; he carried us. The whole season, that guy carried us.

“I just think that the pitching got a little tired. The offense was a roller coaster all year — we had to fight for so many wins. You go back and look at our scores; I’m gonna say in the SEC, we had played 15-18 games, win or lose by less than three runs. Everything was tight. We didn’t blow anybody out (and) they didn’t blow us out… it was stressful. And I think it beat us up a little bit mentally.”

Arkansas entered the regional round with a 33-3 regular season home record. However, as the host team of the Fayetteville Regional, they struggled in their last two games. First they narrowly lost to Kansas State on Saturday 7-6, followed by their aforementioned loss to Southeast Missouri State. They would end the regional round with a 1-2 record.