FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas will host Southeast Missouri State on Friday in the opening game of the NCAA Fayetteville Regional.
The kickoff time at Baum-Walker Stadium has yet to be announced, and no television broadcast plans have been determined, although all regional games will be streamed on ESPN+.
The RedHawks (34-25) won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament and earned an automatic NCAA berth. SEMO is led by Andy Sawyers, a former Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn player and assistant at Nebraska. Former Razorbacks first baseman Trevor Ezell is an assistant on the RedHawks' staff.
The winner of the Arkansas-SEMO game will face the winner of either Louisiana Tech (45-17) or Kansas State (32-24) in a deciding game on Saturday night. The losers of those games will meet in a consolation game on Saturday afternoon.
Louisiana Tech won the Conference USA regular-season championship under former Van Horn assistant Lane Burrows, who was an assistant under Van Horn at Northwestern (Louisiana) State University.
Kansas State is in the special teams division of the Big 12 Conference. The Wildcats will play in the Fayetteville Regional for the first time since 2010.
The Razorbacks are the No. 5 seed overall in the tournament and have home-field advantage in the regional and super-regional rounds. Arkansas is 33-3 this year at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The winner of the Fayetteville Regional will face the winner of the Charlottesville (Va.) Regional in the Super Regional. Virginia, the No. 12 seed in the nation, will host Mississippi State, St. John's University and Penn State.
Correction: SEMO is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference. That conference was incorrectly identified as the Missouri Valley Conference.
