LAWRENCE, Kan. — The wheels fell off, the season ended, and two stalwarts of the Arkansas baseball program proved to be fatal flaws on the 2026 campaign.
Strong pitching and defense are synonymous with the Razorbacks under Dave Van Horn. Both categories failed to live up to expectations this spring, and they got exposed in the Lawrence Regional.
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Kansas sent Arkansas into the offseason with a 13-10 triumph on Sunday, May 31. The Hogs have now failed to win their last 10 regionals that they didn’t start 0-2. Combined with a 10-9 victory over Northeastern earlier in the day, the Razorbacks scored 20 runs, but could not force a winner-take-all Game 7 in the regional.
“If you had told me we’re going to score 10 in each game, I’d have told you we’re probably going to win both of them,” Van Horn said. “But you know, the defense let us down a little bit today.”
Arkansas committed two errors in both games. Against Kansas, a grounder to TJ Pompey in the top of the fifth should have been a double play. Instead, Pompey bobbled the ball and threw it into right field. Kansas scored one run on the play and another later in the inning.
While it wasn’t charged as an error, Maika Niu and Damian Ruiz collided on a fly ball hit off the wall by Tyson LeBlanc in the top of the sixth. The miscue allowed LeBlanc to reach base with a double, and he eventually scored on a three-run blast by Josh Dykhoff.
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Three Kansas runs could have been prevented with better defense. The Hogs ended up losing by that exact margin.
“Pompey had some great days, and he had some days when he struggled,” Van Horn said. “Tonight, double-play gets us out of the inning, next thing you know, they score a run on that. They scored two more instead of us being in the dugout.”
In 2026, Arkansas committed 62 errors. That’s the most in a single season since 2019.
And the poor defense only amplified the surprising struggles on the mound. By the end of the year, there were only a handful of reliable arms, and Van Horn had to overuse them in the regional.
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Ethan McElvain was the closer all season, but he made his first start of the year on Sunday. Once his pitch count eclipsed a new season-high, Kansas started to find success. McElvain pitched three scoreless innings before giving up four of the six runs in the fourth.
“(McElvain) didn’t lose his stuff, but he lost his control,” Van Horn said.
Van Horn turned to Cole Gibler. The lefty had a 2.91 ERA on April 24. He’ll finish the year with a 5.46 ERA after allowing two earned runs in only one inning.
Colin Fisher was next, and his second-half tumble continued with three earned runs in 1⅓ innings. His season ERA finished at 5.59 despite not allowing an earned run in his first 19 innings of the season.
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Arkansas rolled through Peyton Lee, James DeCremer, Cooper Dossett, and Mark Brissey to close the game. Every out from the fourth inning felt like a chore.
This was a foreseeable outcome ever since Arkansas lost to Kansas on Saturday night. The Hogs had enough arms to win three games in a weekend, but failing to capitalize on a brilliant start from Hunter Dietz ended up being the death sentence. The Razorbacks hit eight home runs in two games on Sunday. It wasn’t enough.
However, one thing that wasn’t easily predictable was the end of Arkansas’s 2026 season. On April 5, the Razorbacks were 5-7 in the SEC and outside the top-50 in the RPI. They closed the year by winning four consecutive conference series and rolling into the SEC Tournament final. Arkansas nearly hosted a regional.
The end result wasn’t the desired one, but Van Horn wrapped the season proud of the Hogs’ growth.
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“A month and a half ago, we were struggling. We didn’t know which way we were going to go,” Van Horn said. “We challenged them. We started working different ways, and they responded. We won a lot of games the last 45 days, and we came a long way from where we were in fall baseball. I’ll tell you that.”
Jackson Fuller covers Arkansas football, basketball and baseball for the Southwest Times Record, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at jfuller@usatodayco.com or follow him @jacksonfuller16 on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Arkansas baseball’s 2026 season defined by pitching, defensive failures
