No. 1 Arkansas takes its show on the road to face No. 7 Georgia

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – A part of the Arkansas baseball program’s greatness over the years has been its ability to win on the road.

That ability will be tested once again when the No. 1 and SEC co-leading Razorbacks (31-3, 11-1) travel to face No. 7 Georgia (30-5, 8-4) for a three-game set beginning Friday night in Athens at 5 p.m. CST.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn, whose team is 5-1 on the road this season after taking 2 of 3 at Ole Miss and sweeping Vanderbilt, notes the right mentality has to be there away from home.

“Well, I think you just have to be confident and know that you can play with anybody in the country,” Van Horn said. “You never know how it’s going to go anywhere, even at home.

“Just kind of do what we’ve been doing and show up and play hard and if we win, we win. If we don’t, we don’t.

“We feel like that we’ve been pretty consistent from Day 1. We don’t make a lot of mistakes. We throw the ball over the plate. That’s a good recipe for winning at any level of baseball, not just college baseball.”

The two teams will also play Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at noon with all three games streamed by SEC +.

Georgia’s head coach is former Arkansas and Minnesota Twins pitcher Wes Johnson.

“It’s going to be an interesting series because if you two teams that are kind of alike, in a way if you really look at it, and then we are on the road so advantage Georgia,” Van Horn said.

“But this is going to be another tough challenge on the road for our team and I just really look forward to seeing how we handle it.”

Van Horn is not putting too much emphasis on the series with Georgia seeing as how they will still be 15 SEC games – half the league season – left after Sunday.

“I have been in this league for 20-plus years now and I don’t get too high or low and I don’t want our team too get too high or low,” ban Horn said. “ I just want to keep climbing the ladder and if you have a bad weekend, you have got to make it up somewhere.

“I can’t make one series bigger than it is or bigger than the next one. Because we have got A&M coming down the pike, Texas, Tennessee, LSU and Florida. So they are all the same. They are all really good – whether their record is 2-10 or 10-2 It really doesn’t matter. You have to play well.”

Georgia was an SEC co-leader before getting swept at current co-leader Texas last weekend.

Under Johnson, the Bulldogs lead the SEC in several hitting categories including home runs, slugging percentage, on base percentage and runs.

“Well first off, I think he’s done a great job,” Van Horn said of Johnson. “And no, it doesn’t surprise me a bit. He’s a great coach and he hired some really great coaches. They’re in a really, really good baseball area. You’re talking 80 miles from Atlanta. Just a great part of the country for high school baseball. Doesn’t surprise me a bit.”

Van Horn had the opportunity to watch Georgia play Texas last Friday night when Arkansas’ game with Missouri was rained out.

“They got swept at Texas and got walked off the field in game three,” Van Horn said. “I got to watch game one because we got flooded out here. They were right in that game to win it for five innings and some things just happened.

“That’s why I am saying one pitch, one bloop single can change the whole series. No, I haven’t said one thing about them losing three and I did it would be like ‘we are going to catch them with their hair on fire because they need some wins.’

“But then there go and score 16 runs on Tuesday and hit four homers  so right back to old Georgia.”

Georgia routed Presbyterian 16-2 and have been a potent offense all season, even with the loss of superstar Charlie Condon, the third overall pick in the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft by the Colorado Rockies.

“Georgia can really score,” Van Horn said. “ They’ve got 92 home runs, somewhere in there, lead the country. No lead is safe. You’ve got to know that when you’re playing them. Just play.”

The playing field at Foley Field is now carpet instead of grass.

“It’s different,” Van Horn said. “They had a beautiful grass surface last time I was there and many times I was there.

“I was kind of surprised they went to turf just because of how nice it was but I know they had to go underneath the outfield to bring in some power and different things to their new facility.

“But they play on turf now. We’re used to that. We played there (om turf) against Vandy. But it’s a different game when you play on turf a little bit. Yeah, it’ll be a good series. It’ll be a real good.

Van Horn plans to send out his normal weekend starting rotation of lefty Zach Root (5-1, 3.48 ERA) on Friday, righty Gabe Gaeckle (2-0, 5.77) on Saturday and southpaw Landon Beidelschies (4-0, 3.82) on Sunday.

“Same order, same guys,” Van Horn said. “Yup. Left, right, left.”

Johnson put T-shirts in Georgia’s lockers on Thursday that said ‘I Love Hitting Left Handed Pitchers.’

That being said, the Bulldogs are hitting just .265 against left handed pitchers this season – 12th in the 16-team SEC.

They are 24-2 against right handed starters – hitting an SEC best .334 – and 6-3 against left hand ones in 2025.

“You guys watch the games,” Johnson said Thursday according to the Athen Banner Journal. “Right now, they’re having their way with us.

“Kind of like I told them, ‘In any good relationship, you’ve got to give some love back.’ Right now, they’re getting all the love. We’ve got to get some love back.”

Outfielder Robie Burnett is aware of the message being sent by Johnson, who said he did the same thing when he was an Arkansas high school coach at Abundant Life in Sherwood.

“It’s probably a little message behind that,” Burnett, said. “We’re putting an emphasis on left-handed pitchers and we’re going to start hitting them, plain and simple.

Georgia is slated to start three right handers – Brad Curley (2-0, 3.45) on Friday, Kolten Smith (2-1, 4.34 on Saturday and Leighton Finley (2-0, 6.44).

“I don’t look at the stats, at the numbers too much,” Van Horn said. “I might look at some match ups – left against right, right against right, whatever, vice versa. Maybe situations where they are starting one guy here out there.

“What I do look at it is the stuff, the velocity. We all have technology and we can figure things out – who has a big-time carry fastball, whose got a nasty slider, a plus change up and they have a lot of those guys.

“So maybe they have run into some bad luck or given up one hit that has hurt an ERA a little bit. But we know what we are getting into.”

The Razorbacks will likely welcome Gage Wood back to the pitching staff next weekend.

Wood, who began the season as Arkansas’ Sunday starter, suffered am shoulder impingement injury against Michigan in Arlington, Texas on Feb. 23.

He had a 2.57 ERA through seven inning to that point.

“He’s going on the trip,” Van Horn said. “I don’t know if he’ll be on the 30-man (active roster). I would say I probably won’t put him on the 30-man, but he’s getting close. He’s getting close.

“(His) bullpen has been good and he’s going to throw another one this weekend. That’s one reason he’s going with us. He’d go anyway, but he is going to throw a bullpen while we’re there and, hey, maybe he’ll be ready for the next weekend. We’ll see.”

Photo by John D. James