FAYETTEVILLE — The second Swatter’s Club of the baseball season was today and obviously Dave Van Horn addressed the Razorbacks being ranked No. 1 in several polls.

D1Baseball, Baseball America, USA Today Coaches and some others have Arkansas ranked No. 1. Perfect Game has the Hogs No. 3 behind Louisville and Florida. Van Horn was asked about the rankings today.

“I mentioned something to them when we were ranked fourth and moved up in the poll,” Van Horn said. “But I won’t say a word to them about being ranked No. 1 in a couple of polls. I don’t even know, I just know one poll, I haven’t even looked at any of it.  I have people sending me messages that I have not read yet that I can tell just by glancing what they are going to be about. 

“First off there’s nowhere to go. If you’re ranked No. 1 there’s nowhere to go except backwards. Ole Miss found that out and Florida found that out. You know hopefully we can stay up there for awhile. But I’m sure it’s going to move around. I just want us to get better. Continue to get better and be able to handle being ranked that high is each individual’s own issue and they need to figure it out it does not matter right now. It’s great and I appreciate it. It’s good for the program, it’s good for something to talk about, but at this time of year it’s kind of a pat on the back, we’re doing pretty well and let’s see if you can stay there and how long you can stay there. But, again, we appreciate it.”

Arkansas has beaten Texas Tech, Texas, TCU and Southeast Missouri State. The Red Raiders were No.3 when the Hogs beat them. The win over SEMO on Thursday when Dylan Dodd went against the Hogs impressed Van Horn.

“You know you come back from an emotional trip that runs a day long,” Van Horn said. “You get back late and all of the sudden Tuesday is really over. Then you practice Wednesday. Then playing Thursday you are facing a really good pitcher. He turned down money last summer and came back and they had us. We punched in three runs and tied it up and won it is extra innings. That was a big win for us. Kind of a big trap game for us.  I feel fortunate that we didn’t get beat this week because of that.  Impressed with the players showing up and getting after it everyday.

“We are not going to win every game we know that. As long as we play hard and compete. But it is nice to get off to a great start.”

A change to this weekend’s schedule was also announced by Van Horn. Arkansas will now play Murray State at 1 p.m. on Saturday instead of 2 p.m. The Razorback basketball team now has a game at 4 so Van Horn moved the game up an hour to accomodate fans wanting to go to both events. The Friday game is still 3 p.m. and then Sunday is 1 p.m. Murray State is 4-3 and will face Arkansas State on Tuesday prior to coming to Fayetteville.