FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas avoided a sweep in Baton Rouge on Sunday beating LSU 7-4 to remain in sole possession of second place in the SEC standings.
Arkansas (41-11, 18-9) is now one game ahead of LSU (40-12, 17-10), but two games behind Texas (40-10, 20-7). The top four teams receive double byes at next week's SEC Tournament. There's a real battle for fourth place right now. Dave Van Horn was asked about the standings following Sunday's win.
"You know the standings are what they are," Van Horn said. "We can only control what we do. Today all we could do was win one game. Trying to catch Texas, trying to finish in the top four, just trying to win SEC games on the road against a top 10 team helps your RPI. I’m sure our strength of schedule moved up a lot this week as well. So yeah, it was a really big game here."
Even more important than the byes at the SEC Tournament is trying to secure a Top 8 seed to host a super regional. The polls were good to the Hogs after Sunday's win. The Razorbacks were ranked fifth nationally in both the USA Today Coaches and NWBWA polls, seventh in both the Baseball America and Perfect Game rankings and eighth by D1 Baseball.
They have Tennessee (40-13, 15-12) rolling into Fayetteville for three games beginning Thursday night. This is a big series for both teams with each of them reeling some in recent weeks. Tennessee has lost five of the last six SEC series while Arkansas dropped four of the past five. Arkansas' sweep of Texas is the lone SEC series win since Missouri back in early April.
To stress how big the series are for several teams this weekend one just has to look at the standings. In fourth place just one game back of third-place LSU are Vanderbilt (36-16, 16-11), Georgia (40-13, 16-11) and Auburn (37-15, 16-11). Alabama (39-13, 15-12) is just one game behind that group.
Thursday night's game in Baum-Walker Stadium starts at 7 p.m. and televised on ESPN2. Friday night begins at 6:30 p.m. and can be streamed on the SEC Network+. Saturday's first pitch is 2 p.m. and televised on the SEC Network.
All series this weekend will be Thursday through Saturday. The schedule is as follows.
Tennessee at Arkansas
Texas A&M at Georgia
Alabama at Florida
LSU at South Carolina
Mississippi State at Missouri
Auburn at Ole Miss
Texas at Oklahoma
Kentucky at Vanderbilt