Destiny outlined: Hogs control own fate in SEC

FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas Razorbacks haven't lost an SEC baseball series, going 9-0, but they haven't won anything yet in terms of conference trophies going into the final weekend of the regular season.

The University of Arkansas (39-10, 19-8) has a one-game lead over Tennessee in the overall SEC championship race after taking two of three from the Vols (39-13, 18-9) last weekend, and a two-game lead in the SEC West race over Mississippi State (36-13, 17-10).

Six teams mathematically remain in contention to win at least a share of the SEC championship. Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi State are joined by Vanderbilt (36-12, 17-9), Florida (35-16, 17-10) and Ole Miss (36-15, 16-11).

The Razorbacks, ranked No. 1 in the USA Today coaches poll for the sixth consecutive week, open a three-game series against No. 8 Florida on Thursday night at Baum-Walker Stadium.

Sweeping the Gators will guarantee the Razorbacks their third SEC outright championship -- they won titles in 1999 and 2004 -- even if Tennessee gets a sweep at South Carolina.

Two Arkansas victories will assure the Razorbacks of at least a share of the SEC championship and the outright West title.

"We don't talk about it a whole lot, but we know," Arkansas second baseman Robert Moore said of where the Razorbacks are in the standings. "The ball's in our court. We control our own destiny with all that.

"As long as we play one game at a time, we know at the end of the year it's going to work out for us with the way that we're rolling and the way we're hitting and pitching and playing defense. Hopefully, we can finish it, but we've done an unbelievable job getting to this point, putting us in this position to take control of the West and hopefully the overall SEC."

Dave Van Horn, in his 19th season as the Arkansas coach, said his focus always is on winning the West because the 30-game SEC schedule doesn't include series against all the teams from the other division.

Arkansas won the West in 1999 under coach Norm DeBriyn, and in 2004, 2009, 2018 and 2019 under Van Horn. In 2018, the Razorbacks shared the West title with Ole Miss and in 2019 they shared it with Mississippi State.

"We don't play everybody in the East," Van Horn said. "I want to win the West. We play everybody in the West. If we win the overall, that's awesome. But let's win the West. That's the way we look at it."

Van Horn said he hasn't talked to his team once about the SEC championship.

"They know where we're at and they want to win," he said. "We're in a good position. We're right where we want to be. We're at the top of the standings going into the last week."

The Razorbacks maintained their overall SEC lead by beating Tennessee 3-2 on Sunday in Knoxville, Tenn. If the Vols had won, they would have the overall SEC lead to themselves.

Arkansas bounced back to beat Tennessee after the Vols won 8-7 on Saturday thanks to Max Ferguson's three-run home run in the ninth inning off Jaxon Wiggins.

The Razorbacks had been 31-0 in games in which they led going into the eighth inning, and the shocking outcome resulted in Van Horn being asked how his team would respond Sunday.

"It's just one game," Van Horn said after Sunday's victory. "They got the last at-bat, they beat us.

"The game works that way when you play a lot of baseball games. My comment was, we'll be fine. We'll get up tomorrow and come out and compete and that's what we did."

Arkansas senior left-hander Lael Lockhart -- making his first start for the Razorbacks in two weeks since going just one-third of an inning at LSU -- went 4 1/3 innings on Sunday and held the Vols to 4 hits, 1 run and 1 walk with 7 strikeouts. Of his 76 pitches, 50 were strikes.

The solid start followed Lockhart pitching two innings of relief in Arkansas' 8-4 victory over Arkansas State University on Tuesday night in which he retired all six batters he faced and had 16 strikes on 22 pitches.

"I think it got him back on track," Van Horn said of the Arkansas State game. "He pitched really well [Sunday]. He threw his fastball to both sides of the plate. He'd get them leaning out over the plate and bust them in. He threw some good change-ups.

"Good to see him bounce back. We're going to need him down the stretch."

Arkansas finished the regular season 13-5 in road games, including 2-1 at No. 14 Louisiana Tech, 3-0 at No. 6 Mississippi State, 2-1 at No. 12 Ole Miss, 2-1 at No. 18 South Carolina, 2-1 at LSU and 2-1 at No. 4 Tennessee.

"We just thrive in different atmospheres," Moore said. " We embrace the challenge. Coach [Nate] Thompson tells us that we don't always have to have everything go our way. We're better than that.

"We don't need all the breaks, we don't need all the calls, we don't need the ball to bounce our way all the time."

South Carolina, LSU and Tennessee increased capacity before playing Arkansas. Mississippi State drew a combined 16,327 for the Razorbacks, and Ole Miss -- which had no covid-19 safety restrictions -- drew a three-game series record of 33,403 when Arkansas visited.

"Embrace the challenge that comes our way and we just thrive in that atmosphere," Moore said. "It's a special team because of that.

"We have a great leader in Coach Van Horn. We love playing for him. We love competing for him."