FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas Razorbacks (37-7, 16-5 SEC) will enter the final three weekends of the SEC regular season in a tie with Kentucky for the overall lead and one game ahead of Texas A&M in the SEC West.
With Tennessee (37-7, 15-6) also lurking a game behind the Wildcats (33-9, 16-5) in the SEC East, there appears to be a four-team race for the last divisional crowns awarded before the league adds Oklahoma and Texas to become a 16-team mega conference this summer.
"We're in good position," University of Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "I mean, we've done a good job of taking care of games here in Fayetteville and got a series win last weekend in a tough place, South Carolina.
"I feel like we're trending up a little bit on playing on the road. We've got two tough games in midweek and then we get to go to Kentucky. That's a really tough place to play, and we're going to have to play really good to have success up there."
Junior team captain Peyton Stovall said Saturday it was disappointing not to get a three-game sweep of Florida, but winning the series was still big.
"If you ask any team in the SEC if they wanted to be 16-5 right now, they'd take it in a heartbeat," Stovall said. "I think we're in a really good spot. We just have to keep going out there and keep competing."
Arkansas appears to have the toughest finishing stretch of all the contenders. The Razorbacks must face both Kentucky and Texas A&M on the road, sandwiched around a home series against Mississippi State. The Bulldogs have won five of their last six games to take sole possession of third place in the West, three games behind the Aggies and three ahead of Alabama.
Texas A&M has road series ahead against struggling LSU and Ole Miss before hosting the Razorbacks May 16-18 at Blue Bell Park in College Station, Texas.
Kentucky, coming off a series loss at South Carolina, hosts Arkansas this weekend, travels to Florida and wraps up the regular season by entertaining Vanderbilt at Kentucky Proud Park.
The Volunteers, led by former Arkansas assistant coach Tony Vitello, plays road series at Florida and Vanderbilt before hosting South Carolina on the final weekend at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
Arkansas has won or shared two of the last three SEC overall titles, while Tennessee won the other in 2022.
Top play
Arkansas outfielder Peyton Holt's deke catch that turned into a double play caught fire over the weekend across social media and also was named the No. 1 play on ESPN's SportsCenter.
Holt made the catch after switching from left field to center field in the top of the eighth inning. The Gators had already scored a run to pull within 6-5 and had the bases loaded with one out when Colby Shelton hit a high fly into center field, plenty deep enough to score catcher Brody Donay from third on a tag play. However, Holt went through the motion of making the catch a fraction of a second before the ball hit his glove, causing Donay to leave third base early. Donay realized his mistake and re-tagged but he was doomed.
In the meantime, Holt made the real catch and fired to third baseman Jared Sprague-Lott, whose relay to catcher Hudson White easily beat Donay's head-first slide for a rare 8-5-2 double play.
Florida Coach Kevin O'Sullivan was shown on the SEC Network telecast openly befuddled by the clever ruse.
"It's the big play that everybody is going to talk about, when he didn't tag from third," Florida Coach Kevin O'Sullivan said on the Gators Radio Network. "I don't really have an explanation other than maybe he got deked by the center fielder. But at the end of the day you go back to the bag and if he catches it, you can walk home. If he drops it you walk home."
Leader Leach
The Razorbacks will see a familiar face in the opposing dugout the next two days as Missouri State catcher Dylan Leach will make his return wearing No. 5 for the Bears.
Though he's in his first season at Missouri State, Leach made enough of an impression during fall ball to be elected a team captain.
"He's really done a nice job in terms of performance on the field and leadership in the clubhouse," Missouri State Coach Keith Guttin said Monday. "He's been really productive for us.
"It's rare, but he was elected one of the captains by his teammates in his first year with us. So he made an impression in the fall with his work ethic and being a quality teammate."
Leach played for the Razorbacks in 2021-22, hitting .237 with a .484 slugging percentage, 5 home runs and 20 RBI over 41 games before transferring to Missouri last year.
He chiseled out a place in Arkansas history as he hit for the cycle and homered from both sides of the plate while going 5 for 5 with 5 RBI during a 21-9 win over Central Arkansas on April 5, 2022.
"When Dylan was at Arkansas he homered against us and when he was at Mizzou he homered against us and got a game-winning hit last year," Guttin said. "When his name popped into the portal I told Joey Hawkins, our recruiting coordinator, immediately when I saw it."
The 5-11 senior from Carthage, Texas, is hitting .301 with 12 home runs, 36 RBI and 40 runs scored in 42 games.
One-run fun
The Razorbacks improved to 10-2 in one-run games with Saturday's 6-5 win over Florida in the first game of a doubleheader.
Arkansas is 6-1 in one-run games in SEC play, including 2-1 wins over the Gators and South Carolina in their last two SEC series openers behind starting pitcher Hagen Smith.
Arkansas played all one-run affairs at the College Baseball Series on Feb. 23-25 in Arlington, Texas, downing Oregon State 5-4 and falling 2-1 to Oklahoma State in 14 innings before nipping Michigan 4-3.
Both of the Razorbacks' nonconference wins over Texas Tech came by one run: 9-8 in their biggest comeback of the season from a 7-0 deficit, and 5-4.
Faherty fire
Right-hander Jake Faherty had his longest and most successful pitching stint as a Razorback on Saturday with two clean innings in Game 2 against Florida, giving Coach Dave Van Horn and pitching coach Matt Hobbs another option in a deep bullpen.
"Best he's ever thrown ... if you just talk about pitching," Van Horn said. "Throwing a cutter, slider, whatever you want to call it at 88-90 mph, fastball up to 95 or more.
"He just looked like a guy we thought we were going to have and it kind of went away. If he's back, that's going to really help us down the stretch."
Faherty notched 6 outs on 32 pitches and allowed 1 hit and 1 walk while striking out 2, including Gators slugger Jac Caglianone.
Gator grief
Florida Coach Kevin O'Sullivan lamented the fact the Gators had to pound out a 9-5 win on Saturday afternoon to salvage one game against the Razorbacks.
"That's the silver lining, that we won one, but at the same time it was a frustrating weekend," O'Sullivan said on the Gators Radio Network. "It was a shoulda, coulda, woulda weekend. The bottom line is we didn't.
"But we did battle today and we are walking out of here with at least one. It was a long day."
Limited 9th
Arkansas has scored only four runs in the ninth inning, by far its lowest-scoring inning on the season, with 22 runs in the eighth inning the next lowest.
Of course there are reasons for that. The Razorbacks have batted in the ninth inning in only 15 of their 44 games and in only four of their 31 home games. A scoreless ninth inning against Florida on Saturday was the first time the Hogs batted in the ninth at Baum-Walker Stadium since Nolan Souza's walk-off sacrifice fly scored Jared Sprague-Lott in a 9-8 win over Texas Tech on April 16.
Arkansas hasn't even played a ninth inning in eight of its games that were shortened by run-rule wins.
On the flip side, the sixth inning has a huge lead as the Hogs' most productive frame with 58 runs, followed by the fifth (44), the third (41) and the fourth (39).
The big fifth and sixth innings correlate to opposing pitchers often starting their third time through the Arkansas batting order.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Bob Holt contributed to this report