Dave Van Horn explains how much Arkansas needed weekend series vs. Mississippi State

No. 3 Arkansas scored 21 runs against No. 14 Mississippi State during their three-game series over the weekend.

The Bulldogs would steal Saturday’s game two, defeating the Razorbacks 8-5 after holding Arkansas scoreless over the final three innings. Despite this, Arkansas would average eight runs per game during its two victories — something head coach Dave Van Horn emphasized to his squad heading into last weekend.

“We’ve been talking about it,” Van Horn said postgame about his squad showing out during a big conference series win. “And I have been kind of telling them and pleading with them, ‘Hey, just let me write the same lineup down.’ Just go out and show me that you need to play against right or left or whoever swinging the bat [needs to] be tough outs and they did it all weekend.

“And it was really good to see. I know we only got eight hits, we hit a couple of balls hard but we had three home runs on a day. We probably needed to hit it to dead left on over to get it out of the park with the wind was blowing. So yeah, definitely a good weekend for our offense.”

Arkansas would ultimately log 27 hits during the weekend, scoring the aforementioned 21 runs to complete their third SEC series victory out of their last four.

Winning the series against Mississippi State wasn’t always a sure thing, however. The Bulldogs got off to a 6-0 start during the first two innings before the bullpen of Gage Wood, Christian Foutch, Will McEntire and Gabe Gaeckle held the No. 14 team in the nation scoreless while the Arkansas batters got the job done at the plate.

“It was a great job from our bullpen,” Van Horn said. “I mean, really all weekend if you look at it, they saved us this weekend. And then also, the offense doesn’t get a lot of credit but they did it on Friday. And they did it again yesterday, just not quite enough. And then today, honestly, you’re down six innings and their dugout’s about as loud as they can be over there talking a little bit of bull, but we just kept grinding it out. … So probably the best team win of the year for us.”

Next up for Arkansas is a road matchup against No. 5 Texas A&M to close out the regular season. The series is set to be played Thursday-Saturday with first pitch on Thursday slated for 7 p.m. CT and will air live on ESPN2.