Series reunites Van Horn, Vitello

FAYETTEVILLE -- A mentor-protege meeting of the highest caliber this weekend could determine the team atop the SEC standings after the penultimate series of the regular season.

University of Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn gave assistant Tony Vitello plenty of space to recruit and continue making his name in college baseball from 2014-17 before Vitello took his first head coaching job at Tennessee on June 7, 2017.

Now, Van Horn, 60, and Vitello, 42, guide the teams tied atop the SEC standings, with both ranked in the top 5 in the country.

There are no series in the country bigger than the three-game set between No. 1 Arkansas (37-9, 17-7 SEC) and No. 5 Tennessee (38-11, 17-7) this weekend. And there are few secrets between the two men who will lead their clubs into Lindsey Nelson Stadium, a facility primed for full capacity of 4,283 just in time for the Volunteers' senior weekend.

"They've been good everywhere, obviously, so they're well-coached, they're hard-nosed, they're on a mission," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said of the Vols. "It looks like a fun bunch to be around."

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Arkansas ace lefty Patrick Wicklander (4-1, 1.69 ERA) will put the league's second-best ERA, behind teammate and NCAA leader Kevin Kopps (0.72), up against Tennessee right-hander Chad Dallas (8-1, 3.86) in today's series opener at 5:30 p.m. Central.

Vitello, who also assisted at his alma mater Missouri and TCU before joining the Razorbacks, said on Thursday that he would not be an SEC head coach without having trained under Van Horn.

"I think any time you have a boss, you want someone that trusts you and is willing to give you the freedom to kind of do your thing and prove yourself," Vitello said.

"I could not have asked for a better environment to work in as an employee. We've all been in bad ones, we've all been in good ones. ... That was a really good one for obvious reasons. I mean, the fans there are tremendous. The kids I got to be around were great. But I really felt like I had a lot of breathing room. There was no uncomfortable moments at work every day.

"So I've tried to make sure I implement that up here ... so that's one thing that's kind of been Xerox copied."

Vitello sought advice from Van Horn when taking the job at Tennessee and went about building the Volunteers into an SEC contender in short order.

Vitello inherited a team that was 27-25 overall and 7-21 in the conference in 2017 and led it to a five-win improvement in SEC play the following year. Tennessee bumped up from 29 wins to 40 in Vitello's second year and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2005 season under Coach Rod Delmonico when the Volunteers went to the College World Series. Now the Volunteers are in strong position to earn an NCAA regional host bid.

D1 Baseball projected Arkansas as the No. 1 national seed with a home regional field of 2 seed Nebraska, 3 seed Oklahoma State and 4 seed Oral Roberts. The same outfit projected Tennessee as the No. 6 national seed with a home regional field of 2 seed Georgia Tech, 3 seed Liberty and 4 seed Virginia Commonwealth.

"It doesn't surprise me," Van Horn said of the Vols' resurgence under Vitello. "What I told him was to just go in there and work, don't say a whole lot, don't talk about the former coach's players that are still in the program.

"Just work and the ones that are good enough are still going to be there and go get your own, mix them together and you're going to have a good team. That's what they've got."

Tennessee's 38 wins are tied with Texas to lead the nation. Arkansas is right behind with its 37 wins and is the only Power 5 team remaining with fewer than 10 losses.

Vitello did not want to dive into a question about the series winner possibly leading the SEC with one week to go.

"I think that has been mentioned enough I know that, but there's another week to go in the SEC," he said. "If you're in any major conference, it's crazy what can happen down the stretch or how one weekend can kind of turn things upside-down a little bit.

"I think the best time to kind of look up and see where you're at is on the bus to Hoover, and the SEC Tournament is certainly something that everybody wants to win. ... Until then, I think it's best to kind of keep our nose down and keep on going, especially where we're at in the history of our program.

"Even though I like our club a lot, we haven't done what some of these other programs have in recent history. So to get caught looking at that stuff too much I think would be a mistake."

Tennessee's batting average and earned run average are slightly better than those of Arkansas, but the teams have similar numbers in many departments.

Tennessee has drawn 274 walks to rank second nationally, while Arkansas is third with 271. The Razorbacks are second with 79 home runs and the Vols are 11th with 65.

"They have an older team, very athletic," Van Horn said. "They like to steal bags. They'll put some pressure on you if they can, but they've started hitting the ball out of the park the last few weeks and that's been a big part of their offense, the home run.

"Probably for the last maybe four or five weeks they've hit the ball out of the park a lot. Their pitchers throw a lot of strikes, they don't put you on, they compete hard. They've been really good at home."

The Volunteers are 24-7 at home and have lost only one series there, against No. 2 Vanderbilt on April 16-18.

The Razorbacks have won all 10 weekend series this season and have taken 15 in a row dating back to the end of 2019.

"It's ultimately how you're judged every year," Vitello said. "The [NCAA selection] committee, when they sit down, they look at your series record. The one we lost was a heartbreaker. That Sunday was a day where we just didn't play our best baseball for whatever reason.

"So to string together a deal where you haven't lost any, I don't know what you can relate that to, throwing a no-hitter in the big leagues or anything like that. But in this league, you're certainly making your own breaks, and you're maybe even catching a break here or there."

The pitching matchup for Saturday's 11 a.m. game will be Arkansas right-hander Peyton Pallette (1-2, 4.01 ERA) vs. Tennessee lefty Will Heflin (2-2, 4.17). Arkansas has not announced who will oppose Vols' right-hander Blade Tidwell (6-2, 3.71) in Sunday's noon finale.