Arkansas and LSU set for SEC Showdown in Baton Rouge

By DUDLEY E. DAWSON

Two of the nation’s best collegiate baseball teams will hook it in “The Box” this weekend with both trying to position themselves to be an NCAA Tournament top 8 national seed.

Arkansas (40-9, 17-7) will visit LSU (38-11, 15-9) for a three-game series beginning Friday night at 6:30 p.m. at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.


Friday’s contest will be streamed by SEC Network + Lyn Rollins (play-by-play) and Ben McDonald (analyst) on the call.

Saturday’s 5:30 p.m. game and Sunday’s 3 p.m. one will both be televised by the SEC Network with with Dave Neal (play-by-play) and McDonald (analyst) handling the announcing duties.

The Razorbacks are ranked No. 1 in the NCBWA poll, No. 2 by USA Today, No. 3 per Baseball America and No. 7 by D1 Baseball.

“It’s one of the top two or three hardest places to play in the league if you’re the visiting team,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “That’s for sure, and they’re really talented. They can beat you in a lot of ways. They’ve got guys that have been there and they have power and they can pitch.”

The Tigers are ranked No. 3 D1 6 according to Baseball America under head coach Jay Johnson.

“Arkansas is a real complete team,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson said. “I think they’re the only team in the country with 40 wins this season. We’re really excited about this challenge and very happy to be playing at home.

“It’s going to require all of us – our coaches, our players, our fans to be awesome this weekend. Arkansas is probably playing better than anyone in the country right now.”

Johnson also noted that Arkanas is the elite college baseball recruiting program.

“When I think about Arkansas, a couple of things come to mind,”Johnson said. “Number one, they recruit better than everybody else in college baseball hands down. Explosive players. Talent. To me they are kind of standard of that in recruiting.

“No matter who you end up with, your are always going to be in a battle because they are always going to be able to match up.

“And number two, I have a lot of respect for my peers in the league. With him, he’s in his own way one for the most competitive coaches that I know and certainly respect.

“I think he has hired really good assistants. They have a really good home environment, At the end of the day, it comes down to who is on the field and they always play defense.

“They haven’t won it, the last game, but you would have a hard time convincing me that anybody’s been better than them over the he last 10 years.”

Arkansas, 12-4 in its last 16 games against the Tigers since 2019, has won four of its last five weekend series against LSU, including a weekend series win in Baton Rouge during the 2021 campaign.

The Razorbacks swept the Tigers last season at Baum-Walker Stadium and ride a program record-tying four-game winning streak against LSU entering this weekend.

The Razorbacks swept then consensus No. 1 Texas last weekend in Fayetteville.

Van Horn thinks his team should be ready to go emotionally after that big series, which ended a skid of six of nine SEC games.

“I don’t think it’s — you got all week and now you got to travel and get in their ballpark in front of 13-14,000 people,” Van Horn said. “I don’t think we’ll have any problem with being excited about playing. Emotionally we should be ready to go.”

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Pitching matchups :

Game 1
LSU – So. LH Kade Anderson (6-1, 3.57 ERA, 70.2 IP, 19 BB, 114 SO)
Arkansas – Jr. LH Zach Root (6-3, 3.95 ERA, 66.0 IP, 24 BB, 92 SO)

Game 2
LSU – Jr. RH Anthony Eyanson (7-2, 3.16 ERA, 68.1 IP, 26 BB, 105 SO)
Arkansas – Jr. RH Gage Wood (1-0, 3.77 ERA, 14.1 IP, 2 BB, 28 SO)

Game 3
LSU – TBA
Arkansas – TBA

Photo by John D. James