By Otis Kirk
FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas' season ended short of where they wanted to get on Monday, but a very hot TCU team was simply a better squad.
Dave Van Horn was named SEC Coach of the Year while leading his team to a co-championship in the SEC. Arkansas (43-18) accomplished a lot of things in 2023 despite battling one injury after another.
The Razorbacks played the Fayetteville Regional without right-handed pitchers Jaxson Wiggins, Koty Frank and Dylan Carter and second baseman Peyton Stovall. In addition, second baseman Peyton Holt, Arkansas' hottest hitter down the stretch, tweaked his back late in the opening win over Santa Clara and was out the remainder of the regional until he pinch hit in the ninth inning against TCU on Monday.
Arkansas was leading TCU 4-2 in the fifth inning on Monday, but then simply ran out of pitching.
"We’ve been battling this all year," Van Horn said. "We knew everything had to be just right for us to get through a regional. We felt like we had a better chance to win a super regional than a regional because of our injuries and lack of pitching depth and experience.
"We were either going to really have to hit or our starters were going to have to give us a lot of innings, and unfortunately the teams we played didn’t give us that opportunity."
The Hogs also were without such key players as pitcher Brady Tygart and outfielders Tavian Josenberger and Jared Wegner for extended periods during the year. While the theory all teams have injuries is true, not all are the same. Arkansas didn't just have injuries, but it was key players each time who went down.
"Proud just the whole season," Van Horn said. "Winning the Western Division, beating out LSU and A&M and some of these guys that have all these players this year. I’m just so proud of our players.
"Tying Florida for the overall SEC championship. We’ve only got three of those in my 21 years. Those trophies are hard to get, so I’m super proud of the guys. What we had in that locker room that’s not on the DL all year, I think that we did all we could do honestly."
Arkansas won the Fayetteville Regional in 2021, but then fell to NC State in the Fayetteville Super Regional. They won the Stillwater Regional last year and then the Chapel Hill Super Regional to advance to the College World Series.
"It’s really hard. It’s all about, how are you playing?," Van Horn said. "Are you healthy? I think about ’21, our first baseman almost broke his ankle in the tournament. We’ve got a center fielder that’s got strep throat. These guys are hitting like two and three in the order. It’s just little things that happen. And we lost the super regional in game three, and we’d won everything that had been put in front of us up until then.
"You just don’t know what you’re going to run into and how the ball’s going to bounce, and where everybody’s mind is at. Sometimes it’s easier on the road because people aren’t expecting you to win. Sometimes you’re expected to win. You get a little tight. That’s not what happened to us here. We got beat by a really, really good team and maybe we were running out of gas."
Van Horn was asked how this 2023 team should be remembered?
"Well, I don’t like to use the term ‘overachievers’ or any of that because I think they’re good players, but this is a team — and I’ve said it many times — they show up and they think they’re going to win," Van Horn said. "They showed up and played hard for us all the time. I really can’t remember having to really talk to the team about what we’re seeing isn’t a good enough effort, you’re not playing hard. Never really saw that from this team. Just find a way to win. They would find a way to win and they were fun to be around, honestly. And I’ll talk to them about that in our meeting when we finish up in a day and a half or so.
"But I think what they’re going to be remember for is they won the SEC championship and they won 43 games and they had what, like one guy on the All-SEC team? That’s very rare. You win the SEC championship, you look at Florida, what’d they have? Five? A couple second-teamers? I mean, it was something else. So it was just a bunch of guys that played as a team and they won a championship. I hope they get celebrated in 10 years and they come back and I bet they’re all doing something pretty good."
Van Horn now turns his attention to the 2024 season dealing with the upcoming draft, getting as much as his No. 1-ranked recruiting class in the nation to campus and the transfer portal, both incoming and leaving.