After scoring a series victory over Mississippi State last weekend, Arkansas‘ quest for one last SEC West title comes down to this weekend’s series against No. 5 Texas A&M.
The Aggies are running second place behind the Razorbacks in the SEC West as the two top clubs meet in College Station for the final series of the regular season. The Hogs are currently 19-8 in league play compared to A&M’s 17-10 mark, meaning the home team will have to sweep Arkansas to win the division outright.
For these schools and the five others in the SEC West, 2024 will be the final season of divisional splits in SEC baseball as the league will turn to a homogenized model after adding Texas and Oklahoma last season. Razorback head coach Dave Van Horn is a little sad to see the divisions go away but he’s excited for one more chance to win the West.
“Well, it makes it a little more interesting I guess,” he said of the opportunity this week, especially since the two leaders of the division are facing off to close out the regular season.
“It’s the two teams at the top playing each other last day. It’s difficult. We’re on the road playing in a really difficult place to win if you’re the visiting team and they proved that again this year with 30+ wins I think. But I think it’s good for our team.”
For Arkansas, this run to end the season is pretty tough. Obviously, they travel to Texas A&M this weekend, but the Hogs also just faced the SEC West’s third-place team, Mississippi State, and beat them two out of three. These are tests Van Horn likes to have in the month of May.
“I made a comment over a week ago to our players that having the opportunity to play Mississippi State and play Texas A&M is just, you know, it’s good for us in the long run, as far as playing great competition in tough venues. And the two teams that are probably the hottest teams in our league, at least our division, at this time. And you know, there won’t be anything coming down the road probably that we haven’t seen after this.”
After this weekend, Arkansas turns attention to the postseason, where Dave Van Horn predicts the Razorbacks will face few tougher challenges than the six games against top-15 caliber clubs they have over a 10-day stretch.
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