FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 5 Arkansas once again saw its baseball season end in embarrassing and disappointing fashion.

Arkansas (44-16) was No. 1 much of the season and the expectations were through the roof for them. They hosted the Fayetteville Regional and ended up winning one game out of three. They lost to No. 3 seed Kansas State and eliminated by No. 4 seed SEMO. The only team that had a worse showing at the regional was No. 2 seed Louisiana Tech. They went winless in two tries.

The Razorbacks won four times in their final 13 games. It's the second year in a row that Arkansas didn't even get out of the Fayetteville Regional and advance to a super regional. They were the heavy favorites both years.

Part of the problem is Arkansas built its early record and lofty ranking against some of the weaker teams in the SEC. The schedule saw the better teams in SEC be at the last month. On May 3-5 the Hogs lost two of three at Kentucky. The next weekend they took two of three at home against Mississippi State. The May 16-18 weekend saw them win one of three at Texas A&M which was enough to take the SEC West title. They were 0-2 at the SEC Tournament.

In the last eight games of the season Arkansas stranded 70 runners. The lack of clutch hitting combined with the pitching staff faltering down the stretch helped lead to an early end for the Arkansas season.

Following Sunday's loss to SEMO Dave Van Horn talked about some of the issues he saw with the team.

"We just, we came back rested and we swung the bat so good on Friday," Van Horn said. "We swung it really well yesterday, left 13 out there, and then today it looked like we were exhausted. I didn’t really know what to do or say. I think SEMO just did a tremendous job of pitching to us today. It’s been a battle, and I would say that’s probably, when you don't pitch good, you don’t have a chance. The pressure of hitting this type of pitching day in and day out, you’ve got to stop people, and we struggled a little bit the last few weeks."

Arkansas was 33-3 at home heading into the Fayetteville Regional. Kendall Diggs was among those in disbelief after Sunday's loss.

"Yeah man, it sucks," Diggs said. "We gave it all we had. But like [Peyton Stovall] said, congrats to SEMO. They played a good game. I love every one of these guys. Appreciate all the coaches, whole program, for everything they’ve done."

Van Horn was asked about the success in regular season last two years then collapse in regional?

"Well, I don’t think there’s a lot of decisions we have to make this offseason," Van Horn said. "We’re going to lose almost all our players again for the third year in a row. Really, since 2021, we’ve had to almost start over. You have a couple of freshmen and maybe one or two sophomores that have shown some stuff, but we’ve lost our complete outfield again. They’ll all be gone. Going to lose your second baseman. I don’t think the first baseman will be back. Starting catcher’s gone. Starting third baseman graduates. Your whole rotation will probably go if they get an opportunity. I could go on and on. I think about it every day. It’s just the way it is. It’s the way it is these days. 

"We’ve got kids coming in. We’re going to get hit in the draft. Last year the draft killed us, absolutely killed us. We lost four freshmen last year that would’ve been freshmen on this team. They got $11 million total for all four of them. You’re just hoping to get a couple of them or just get one of them, and we didn’t get any of them. That’s our battle. We know it. We’ve got some good young guys in the program that are going to get better and gain some experience. But we’ve got to get more. We’ve got to have more. So we’ll be working hard. 

"We’ve got kids coming in. We’re going to get hit in the draft. Last year the draft killed us, absolutely killed us. We lost four freshmen last year that would’ve been freshmen on this team. They got $11 million total for all four of them. You’re just hoping to get a couple of them or just get one of them, and we didn’t get any of them. That’s our battle. We know it. We’ve got some good young guys in the program that are going to get better and gain some experience. But we’ve got to get more. We’ve got to have more. So we’ll be working hard."

The problem with that is all teams lose players to the draft. That isn't just an Arkansas thing. The truth is if Arkansas had played SEMO and Kansas State earlier in the season they would have likely defeated both and maybe with ease. The late season slides both last year and this year are concerning. Teams are supposed to be playing their best at the end, not beginning.

Nate Thompson, Arkansas' hitting coach, has taken a lot of criticism. He is reportedly a candidate to become the head coach at Southwest Missouri State where he was an assistant before heading to Arkansas. Thompson or not at Arkansas next season it sounds like an offensive change is coming for Arkansas.

"He's ate up with the offense and analytics," Van Horn said. "He really tries to train a swing. He does a great job. Nobody works harder than him at it. You can always make adjustments, and a lot of times I think what you're talking about is maybe a little bit more of an approach. Really in my opinion, that's always important to do that.

"But we've got to get a little better athlete. We can't just have eight guys that hit homers. I like guys that hit doubles and I like guys that hit homers, but you've got to have some guys that can run, too. You've got to be able to create some offense the days the winds blowing in or they're really good on the mound and you can you're having trouble making contact. That's something that that we want to do, and we're trying to get the right players. The four guys that we lost last year that were high school kids, those kids could all really run and they could hit and play. It kind of devastated us a little bit. It threw us back. So yeah, always looking to get better and make adjustments."

Former Batesville standout Gage Wood is set to return. He became a starter later in the season after spending much of the year in long relief. Gabe Gaeckle is a candidate to become a starter. Colin Fisher should be healthy again and also is a candidate to start. Van Horn will use the transfer portal again as he did last year.

The ending to the past two seasons have left a bad taste in many fan's mouth and figuring out how to have momentum late in year is a must for Van Horn.