Dave Van Horn congratulates 'wrecking crew' TCU team for winning Fayetteville Regional

Arkansas‘ postseason hopes dwindled away in front of their home crowd Monday as they fell to TCU 12-4 in the elimination game final of the Fayetteville Regional. The Horned Frogs leaned on strong defense, pitching, and powerful hitting to defeat the Razorbacks twice in the regional round, which Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn couldn’t help but give props to following their Monday loss.

“Really the first thing I want to congratulate TCU man, they were a wrecking crew man, they were really good this weekend,” Van Horn said. “We knew and we saw they were coming to us but we were getting into if everything we had heard and I mean it was true that were really hot and they were really tough to beat, and we’d already seen them obviously. But whatever was going on in the middle of the season, they fixed it, they’re awfully good.”

The Razorbacks and the Horned Frogs squared off early in the regular season in the third annual College Baseball Showdown, where the TCU won handily 18-6. From the second game of the year to their final two matchups the Horned Frogs gave Arkansas problems scoring 50 total runs, 52 hits, and nine home runs in their three games this season.

But before Van Horn dove further into the game, he wanted to give a special shoutout so some of the unsung heroes who helped the Razorbacks host the regional round.

“And then the other thing too is our grounds crew, I thought they did an incredible job battling the rain and tarp on and off. I’m sure they haven’t had much sleep, but the field played great, it was unbelievable so appreciate those guys,” Van Horn said.

As far as Monday’s game it was pretty simple, TCU played special and Arkansas did not, as the Razorbacks were held scoreless in seven innings and could not overcome the elite pitching and stellar hitting from the Horned Frogs.

“We didn’t hit, they pitched extremely well,” Van Horn said. “Cam Brown gave us a shot in the first to get him, and what I mean by that is score probably three runs and we only scored one. He worked his way out and then the left-hander Ben (Abeldt), I don’t know if I can pronounce his name correctly so I won’t try, but I thought he was awesome and came in and threw what, about 70 pitches or so? Had a couple of really quick innings and just held us down.”

The Razorbacks regained a 4-2 lead heading into the bottom sixth inning following a Jared Wegner home run, but the Horned Frogs would answer with 10 unanswered runs to put an exclamation point on their dominant regional run.

“You know it looked like we had a chance to build on that lead a little bit and then bang, they punch in a run, we don’t score, and the next inning they scored three more and all of a sudden we’re losing, and we didn’t stop them,” Van Horn said.

TCU will look to keep their nine-game winning streak alive in the Super Regionals, as they’ll host Indiana State starting on Friday, June 9 at 5 p.m. ET.