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The Hogs are going back to Omaha, Neb., for the 2025 College World Series, and they will face their familiar foes, the LSU Tigers, in an all-SEC first-round game to be played at either 1 or 6 p.m. Saturday at Charles Schwab Field.
Coach Dave Van Horn’s Arkansas Razorbacks (48-13) routed the Tennessee Vols, 11-4, Sunday at Baum-Walker Stadium in Super Regional play to earn their 12th trip to the CWS in program history.
Later Sunday night, LSU (48-15) fought off a weather delay to punch its ticket to Omaha with a 12-5 victory over the West Virginia Mountaineers at Alex Box Stadium, setting up a showdown between the two proud SEC programs.
They will be joined by UCLA, which advanced over Texas-San Antonio; Coastal Carolina, which advanced over Auburn; Arizona, which advanced over North Carolina; Oregon State, which advanced over Florida State; and Louisville, which advanced over Miami in first-round play.
Duke and Murray State play a rubber match at 6 p.m. Monday on ESPN to decide the final participant in the CWS.
ESPN plans to release the final CWS schedule sometime after the conclusion of the Duke-Murray State game. All games will be televised by ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC.
Van Horn said the Razorbacks will travel to Omaha on Wednesday. It’s the Hogs’ first trip to the CWS since 2022. The Tigers last played in the CWS in 2023 and won the national title.
The Razorbacks and Tigers are the lone survivors of 13 SEC teams receiving bids to the NCAA Tournament. With the Tigers and Hogs bracketed together in the first round, there is no possibility of an all-SEC final.
The Razorbacks lost their three-game series to LSU in early May, falling 5-4 and 13-3 in the first two games before rebounding in the finale for a 7-4 victory to avoid a sweep.
Oddly enough, the third-seeded Razorbacks and the sixth-seeded Tigers are the two highest seeds left in the CWS.
The NCAA does not reseed for the tournament, a subject that is no doubt to be hotly discussed in SEC corners this week.
The SEC has dominated the CWS in recent years, with five different SEC programs – Tennessee in 2024, LSU in 2023, Ole Miss in 2022, Mississippi State in 2021, and Vanderbilt in 2019 — winning national championships. No CWS was played in 2020, as the NCAA canceled the majority of the season due to the pandemic.
In four of those seasons, the national title was decided in contests that featured only current SEC teams. Vandy lost to MSU in 2021, Florida lost to LSU in 2023, and Texas A&M lost to Tennessee last year. In 2021, Oklahoma lost to Ole Miss as a member of the Big 12, but the Sooners now play under the SEC banner, joining the league with Texas last summer.
The 2025 College World Series is composed of two rounds. The first features two, four-team double-elimination brackets. The winners of the two brackets play a best-of-three-game series to determine the championship.
Along with LSU, UCLA, and the winner of the Duke-Murray State game, will be in Arkansas’s bracket.
The Arkansas-LSU matchup is a tantalizing one to be sure, but before we forge ahead, let’s not forget the Razorbacks’ Super-Regional victory over Tennessee, coached by former Razorback assistant Tony Vitello.
The Razorbacks held on to win a nail-biter, 4-3, Saturday in the first game of the Super Regional before crushing the orange-clad Vols, 11-4, in a no-doubter on Sunday.
In a game filled with Hog highlights, none were bigger than Logan Maxwell’s two-out, two-strike grand slam to left field in the fourth inning to make Arkansas’ trip to the CWS a sure thing.
Maxwell’s clout gave the Hogs a 7-1 lead, and while Tennessee tacked on three more runs over the course of the game, Arkansas was never threatened after the 335-foot shot.
Cam Kozeal and Reese Robinett each hit singles to reach base early in the fourth. Tennessee intentionally walked Charles Davalan because of his hot bat on Saturday and to set up the double play.
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