FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 2-seed Arkansas now knows its first opponent at the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., on Friday at 3 p.m.

Ole Miss, the No. 7 seed, defeated No. 10 Florida 3-1 on Wednesday to advance facing the Razorbacks. The two teams opened SEC play against each other in Oxford. Ole Miss took the opener 10-6, but the Razorbacks bounced back to win the series taking 12-3 and 12-9 victories.

The format for this year's tournament has changed. It is single elimination. The Razorbacks received a double bye so they would have to win three games to take the title. Texas (1), LSU (3) and Vanderbilt (4) were the others who received the double bye. Will McEntire is a veteran of the SEC Tournament and talked about the new format.

"Yeah it’s going to be different not having a double-elimination right away," McEntire said. "So, go out there with a sense of urgency and just play tough baseball."

One of the hottest hitters for the Hogs in recent weeks has been catcher Ryder Helfrick. He too talked about the format change.

"I mean, for me, last year we went 0-2, so we didn't play more than three anyways," Helfrick said. "But, I think this year we need to just go in and play hard and try to win the whole thing. I think that's always the goal, is to win, and if we had to play seven – I would want to play seven."

Helfrick has 10 home runs, knocked in 30 runs and hitting .316. He has gone from hitting eighth in the lineup to fifth. Dave Van Horn talked about what when into the change.

"Well, I thought he swung the bat really good at Florida, thought he swung it really good at LSU," Van Horn said. "His batting practice, like I mentioned the other day, he’s not just sitting there smoking balls out of the park to the pull side. He’s hitting line drives through the middle, hitting the ball right-center. Give credit to, I think it was (Brayden) Krenzel that got him a couple times throwing that sinker. We should have moved up on him more in the box, toward the pitcher and tried to catch that sinking 93-95 mph fastball out front a little bit.

"But yeah, he just… They kind of show us. That’s what we do. It’s what we’ve been doing forever. We have to watch. We have to use our eyes and go with what we see. There’s a guy hitting 8th, 7th and now he’s hitting 5th. Today when I wrote the lineup, I thought about putting (Cam) Kozeal in front of him and then I thought, ‘Well, we won yesterday. Not a big deal. Just keep it the same.’ And it worked out."

Van Horn also talked about the benefit of having a catcher hitting like Helfrick.

"Yeah. It’s really, a lot of times you don’t see it because it’s such a tough decision," Van Horn said. "I kind of kidded with Ryder today right after we stretched. I just said, ‘hey, how you feeling?’ He said, ‘I feel great’. I said, ‘you know, you’ve got to be tough to be a catcher, and you’ve got to be mean’. He goes, ‘yeah, I know’. I said, ‘you’re that guy right?’ He said, ‘yeah’. Because, I mean, they take a beating. Up and down and crouched, and they got to think because we let our catchers call the game. Pitcher has an option to shake them. We call in some pitches. Suggestions. And you know, you have to be a really dedicated person to your physical being. He has to get his rest. He has to eat right, and he does.

"But to have him hit, I think about our catchers over the last 15 years, I mean, James McCann really hit his junior year. Didn’t hit as a freshman and he started the last 25 games all the way to Omaha in 2009 as a true freshman. And then his sophomore year was better, but his junior year he might have led our team in hitting. And that was the year, 2011, that the bats were pitiful. I mean, you could have gone down to the TG&Y and bought a wood bat that was better than what we were using, and it probably had a high-c baseball and the game got real boring and they figured it out a little bit, but James was a great catcher. One of the greatest to ever come through here, and he’s done great in the big leagues and he’ll probably be a manager one day if he wants."

Arkansas (43-12) and Ole Miss (38-18) will be televised on the SEC Network. The winner of this game will face either LSU, Texas A&M or Auburn on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on the SEC Network. Auburn and A&M play Thursday. The championship game is set for Sunday at 2 p.m. and on ESPN2.