FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Over the past 56 games, Arkansas’ season is filled with plenty of different pretty moments.

Three of the program’s 17 no-hitters came within the last three months. Twenty-three run-rule victories is a program record for a season that shattered the old record of 16 (2014).

In an elimination game, none of it was pretty. Lefty starter Payton Burnham was throwing up just hours before she took the mound to spin a complete game shutout.

Although she retired the final 14 hitters, she had to strand a runner on base in each of the first three innings in a 2-0 game.

Burnham had her Jordan flu game moment, battling an illness over the past 36 hours.

“ Resting [and] recovering,” Burnham said. “Just trying to get back to at least 80% as fast as possible.”

The Arkansas offense, ranked eighth in runs in the NCAA that averaged nearly eight runs a game, was held to just six hits on four runs.

All the runs were aided by less than stellar Ole Miss defense.

The two runs in the first came without the ball ever leaving the infield. The two runs in the fifth came directly as a result of a pair of errors.

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like,” coach Courtney Deifel. “Tonight it was a phenomenal performance on defense and our hitters did enough, and that’s really all that matters.”

In a season of pretty wins, historical moments and beauty prizes of offensive brilliance, it was perhaps the most ugly duckling of them all that extended its season an extra day.

“ She wants the ball,” Deifel said about Burnham. “She wants the moment. If you’re gonna be a pitcher, you have to want that. It takes a special breed to do that. She thrives in it, and she was just really excited to feel better.”

Now Arkansas finds themselves in the same position that they were nearly three years ago. The Hogs managed just five hits across seven innings in a decisive game three in 2022 against Texas.

Their season ended with a whimper, as the Longhorns took the ticket to Oklahoma City away from Deifel and the Razorbacks on their home field.

The Hogs look to avoid that same fate three years later, win and make program history.

“ I don’t know another team that would be able to do what they did yesterday,” Deifel said. “Just was incredibly proud of ’em.”

“For them to turn the page from yesterday and show up today and play loose with their backs against the wall, but never feeling that from them was really special.

“They know tomorrow’s about toughness. It’s gonna take a lot of guts, a lot of heart, and a lot of toughness. They’ll be ready.”

Ole Miss doesn’t have the same scar tissue, with the first game being the first Super Regional win in school history. It’s a one game shootout where the pressure cooker gets cranked up to another level.

“Having the ability to let go,” Ole Miss coach Jamie Trachsel said. “The great players, the elite players, they just do it faster than everybody else. We would have liked to win, we didn’t. Our team has done a pretty good job of flushing and moving on.”

First pitch between Ole Miss and Arkansas is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday and will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas’ official stay in Hoover and the SEC Tournament lasted just over three hours. The Razorbacks were one of two top four seeds to go one-and-done.

The No. 7 Ole Miss Rebels took a five-run first and made it stick in a 5-2 win.

“I would much rather be playing at least one more game and hopefully two just to kind of stay on rhythm a little bit,” coach Dave Van Horn said. “If we’d have been here since Tuesday and maybe won three in a row and we had to win two or three more to win it, maybe that’s more than you need. I might answer you differently. But it’s our first game. We weren’t ready to go home.”

Van Horn’s team should be a lock to be a top eight national seed, giving Arkansas home field advantage through the first two rounds of the postseason, should they advance.

They rank No. 5 in the Rating Percentage Index (RPI).

It might not be long before Ole Miss and Arkansas matchup again. As Arkansas awaits its fate with the selection show Monday, D1Baseball has the two teams facing off in a potential Super Regional. Here’s the full regional as of Saturday morning,

1. Arkansas (3)
2. Kansas
3. Creighton
4. Little Rock

1. Ole Miss (14)
2. TCU
3. Stetson
4. North Dakota State

Getting to the next round is the first order of business and lurking as the two seed in the Oxford Regional is TCU, which knows a thing or two about knocking out a SEC host school, blasting

The Hogs will be very familiar with the opponent of the first game in the potential regional. They have already faced the Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans in a two-game midweek series in mid-April, in which Arkansas pitching staff spun two straight shutouts, 10-0 and 4-0.

Ole Miss vaulted themselves back into hosting contention with at least a run to the SEC semifinals. The Rebels are now the No. 14 seed in the same projection, setting a potential rematch.

With up to 13 teams in the SEC making the field of 64, the SEC holds at least half of the regional hosting sites in both the D1Baseball and Baseball America’s bracketology.

Baseball America has another potential SEC rematch. The Tennessee Volunteers also brought themselves back into hosting contention with a semifinal run to the SEC Tournament, taking out No. 1 Texas before getting run-ruled by Vanderbilt.

The Volunteers just left Fayetteville to close the regular season, losing two out of three, could be making a return trip if chalk holds.

Here’s Baseball America’s latest Bracketology:

1. Arkansas (3)
2. Northeastern
3. Virginia
4. Central Connecticut

1. Tennessee (14)
2. West Virginia
3. East Tennessee State
4. Bryant

The No. 3 seed in Arkansas’ regional could prove to be quite the challenge. Virginia was ranked the No. 2 overall team in D1Baseball’s preseason rankings.

The Razorbacks will await its fate 11 a.m. Monday when the full field of 64 is revealed on ESPN2.

“We’ve got to tighten up as a group,” Van Horn said. “We can’t let that happen again. We need to have a good week back in Fayetteville and get ready to go.”

The Ole Miss Rebels had a scare in the outfield during their win over Arkansas in the SEC Tournament on Friday. While the ‘Rebs won 5-2, two of their outfielders were involved in a violent collision on a play where Razorbacks second baseman Cam Kozeal scored on an inside-the-park home run.

Kozeal hit the ball to right-center in the bottom of the 2nd inning and the ball was right between Ole Miss center fielder Isaac Humphrey and right fielder Ryan Moerman. Humphrey and Moerman ran into each other full-speed. Gloves, hats and sunglasses went flying. Moerman got the worst of it and was slow to get up while Humphrey was able to get up and limp to the ball.

Humphrey was able to shake it off and stay in, but Moerman had to leave the game.

Moerman, who started all 57 games for Ole Miss this season, hurt his knee on the play and is also in the concussion protocol according to the Clarion Ledger. The Rebels will take on LSU in the SEC Tournament semifinals on Saturday afternoon.

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