FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas will head to the Stillwater Regional to face Grand Canyon on Friday at noon on the SEC Network.
In addition, host and No. 1 seed Oklahoma State (39-20) will face No. 4 Missouri State (30-27) Friday. Arkansas (38-18) is the No. 2 seed while Grand Canyon (41-19) is the No. 3 seed. Missouri State won the Missouri Valley Tournament and Grand Canyon took first place in the Western Athletic Conference during the regular season. Dave Van Horn talked about going to Stillwater.
"I haven't seen the facility since it's been completed but it looks beautiful," Van Horn said. "I'm excited to see that and play there."
Arkansas appeared to be a lock to host a regional and in play for a national seed until they hit a slide at the end of the regular season losing six of eight games. Arkansas' RPI was also well below what the NCAA was looking for in a host school.
The Razorbacks lost to Missouri State 6-4 on May 3 at Baum-Walker Stadium. They last played Grand Canyon in March, 2020, in the final two games before the COVID shutdown. Arkansas won those games 6-1 and 10-9. Grand Canyon is located in Phoenix, Ariz.
They last played in a Stillwater Regional in 2015. The Razorbacks actually won that regional beating Oral Roberts 8-6, Oklahoma State 7-5 and St. John's 4-3. They got to advance to a super regional at home since Missouri State's ballpark wasn't available for them to host. The Hogs beat Missouri State 18-4, lost 3-1 and then won 3-2 to advance to the College World Series.
The Stillwater Regional is opposite the Chapel Hill Regional. Host North Carolina (38-19), Hofstra (30-21), VCU (40-18) and Georgia (35-21). Oklahoma State is a No. 7 national seed while North Carolina is No. 10.
In Grand Canyon, Van Horn will face a friend of his in Coach Andy Stankiewicz.
"They're always good," Van Horn said. "A very good defensive team, they can pitch and this year they're swinging it. They're hitting over .300 as a team for the season. Won their league again."
Anyone expecting an easy path with Grand Canyon might want to rethink that. They have beaten Arizona 19-3 and 11-7 this season while losing 5-3. They downed Oregon State 13-7 and fell to them 9-8. They split with Arizona State 7-5 and 4-6, downed Texas Tech 8-7 and then divided a pair of games with Stanford 5-1 and 1-11.
Van Horn was asked if he had held out any hope of hosting a regional despite the late season slide?
"No, I didn't feel like we were going to host a regional," Van Horn said. "RPI wasn't where it needed to be and losing down the stretch didn't help obviously. I'm just glad we're in a regional and will take wherever they give you, but I think it's nice we get to stay a little closer."
Van Horn addressed what he feels needs to be done to kickstart the team back to playing like they were much of the first half of the season.
"Maybe just change our mindset a little bit," Van Horn said. "Take a step back and evaluate the long season. Maybe think more about the good things we've done. Just be real positive.
"As far as game play, we need to score earlier in the game. It seems like we've struggled to get off to a good start. We've been behind a lot and have to fight back. We did a few times down the stretch, but more times than not we didn't catch them. I think more than anything just change our minds. Anything can happen."
Van Horn has been using Will McEntire as the first starter in recent games. Prior to that he had a rotation of Connor Noland, Hagen Smith and Jaxon Wiggins. How will the rotation play out in Stillwater?
"We haven't talked about it yet," Van Horn said. "But we'll definitely go with who we think is the best matchup to get Grand Canyon out. We'll start to look at some video on them, research their offense, are they right or left handed? Just make a decision from there."