Stillwater trip reuintes rivals

FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas will play a familiar foe to open the NCAA baseball Tournament.

The 20th-ranked Razorbacks (35-22) are the No. 2 seed in the Stillwater Regional and will play No 3 seed Oral Roberts (41-14) at noon Friday at Allie P. Reynolds Stadium.

The matchup was announced Monday when the NCAA released the 64-team field. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.

Top-seeded Oklahoma State (37-18) and No. 4 seed St. John's (39-14) play at 6 p.m. Friday.

Arkansas has played ORU 100 times since 1970 with the Razorbacks holding a 65-35 series advantage. The Razorbacks won the most recent meeting, in 2012, 6-1 at Baum Stadium.

This season, ORU won the Summit League regular-season and tournament titles and has won 13 of its past 14 games. The only loss in that span was at Wichita State, 7-6, on May 12.

The Golden Eagles went 25-5 in conference play and 3-0 in the Summit Tournament, capped by a 6-0 victory in the final over Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne in Sioux Falls, S.D.

"They've won a lot of ballgames and just rolled through their conference tournament," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "They know how to win."

Van Horn and the Razorbacks are happy about the 180-mile trip from Fayetteville to Stillwater, compared to last year's 1,075-mile trek to Charlottesville, Va., last year.

"It's a great field, and we're excited that it's a little closer than last year," Van Horn said. "Hopefully, Razorback fans will show up. That'll be fun for our players."

The Razorbacks will take a bus to Stillwater after having to fly to Charlottesville.

"Not having to go very far is very nice for us," Arkansas junior pitcher Trey Killian said. "I think all of us are pretty pumped about where we're going."

Arkansas was on the road for 12 days for a game at Creighton, a three-game series at Georgia and for the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., before returning to Fayetteville on Saturday.

"It's nice sleeping in your own bed, and if you have a dog seeing your dog and if you have a girlfriend seeing your girlfriend," said Razorbacks senior left fielder Joe Serrano, who is from Tucson, Ariz. "It's nice coming back to Fayetteville. Honestly, it feels like home to me now.

"I got in my comfort zone and finally relaxed."

Arkansas is playing a regional in Stillwater for the fourth time, going 0-2 there in 1983, 1-2 in 1986 and 0-2 in 1988.

Van Horn said he plans to start Killian (2-4, 4.72 ERA) against ORU. Killian pitched 7 2/3 innings against Tennessee last Tuesday at the SEC Tournament and held the Volunteers to 4 hits without a walk and had 5 strikeouts.

"He's our oldest pitcher and threw well last weekend," Van Horn said.

Arkansas is playing in a regional for the 28th time and for the 14th consecutive season. That streak looked to be in jeopardy when the Razorbacks started this season 11-12.

"It kind of took us a little bit longer to find out who we were this year," Arkansas junior right fielder Tyler Spoon said. "But once we did, we just got it rolling and felt confident.

"For us not to lose an SEC series those last eight weekends is huge going into this regional."

Arkansas and ORU met every season from 1990 to 2012, but have taken a break from each other the past three seasons.

"We couldn't work it out a couple of times," Van Horn said. "There were a few different reasons."

Van Horn said the Golden Eagles' NCAA power ranking was an issue in scheduling recently. ORU was 25-32 and 30-26 the previous two seasons as a member of the Southland Conference before returning to the Summit League.

Oral Roberts' NCAA power ranking is No. 39 this season compared to Arkansas at No. 34.

"We're actually working on getting together in the future, whether it's home and away or just every other year, one here, one there in different years," Van Horn said. "I think you're going to start to see us play them again."

Sports on 05/26/2015