Dave Van Horn reveals message to Arkansas players before another elimination game

Arkansas is no stranger to elimination games. The Razorbacks fell to Ole Miss on Monday, meaning they had to win three straight elimination games to make it to the College World Series championship series.

They won one on Tuesday, defeating Auburn to set up a rematch with Ole Miss Wednesday night. If the Rebels win, Arkansas goes home. But if the Razorbacks win, the two teams will play a winner-take-all game on Thursday for a championship series berth. Even with the stakes getting higher, Dave Van Horn hasn’t changed his message to his team.

He opened up about what he said during an interview with ESPN’s Kris Budden during the fifth inning of Wednesday’s game.

“Pretty much the same thing as yesterday,” Van Horn said. “Play loose, have fun. Let’s see what can happen if we just do what we do and that’s compete every pitch and every man up in that ‘pen.”

Hagen Smith got the start for Arkansas and Van Horn seemed to like what he saw. He threw well in his five innings of work, allowing just two hits and one earned run while striking out eight Ole Miss hitters. Van Horn said he was most impressed with Smith’s ability to rebound after facing adversity, which came in the second inning when he allowed a home run to Ole Miss’ Kemp Alderman.

“Slider’s been really good,” Van Horn said. “He lost command twice and he bounced back. That’s kind of what he does. He got his own jam and got out of it. Been working that slider pretty good. Throwing a lot of strikes.”

More on Dave Van Horn’s approach for Arkansas while facing CWS elimination

After escaping elimination on Tuesday night by putting up 11 runs on Auburn, Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn shared the team and his staff’s mindset going into the College World Series must-win game.

“You never know how it’s going to go,” Van Horn said in his postgame press conference. “If Auburn would have got off to a great start on the mound, I think we would have had a really, really good ball game. Both teams didn’t want to go home, obviously, and we just jumped out on them.

“But speaking for our team, we don’t want to go home. We think we can play five days in a row. We like it. We’re here until we’re not.”