FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas Razorbacks had their ups and downs through the homestretch of the regular season, dropping four of their final six conference series but hanging on for a second-place finish in the brutal SEC.

Now the national No. 3 seed Razorbacks are the highest seed left standing as the NCAA Baseball Tournament enters its super regional round this weekend. Arkansas (46-13) will host No. 14 seed Tennessee (46-17) for a best-of-three series starting at 4 p.m. Saturday at Baum-Walker Stadium.

The Razorbacks are coming off a dominant weekend in all three phases — hitting, pitching and defense — in a three-game sweep of North Dakota State and Creighton in their home regional. They played errorless baseball and outscored the Bison and Bluejays by a combined 26-6 for their first three-game sweep of a regional since 2019.

“I feel very fortunate,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said after Sunday’s clinching, 8-3 win over Creighton. “It’s not easy. I mean, we sat here two years in a row and we didn’t get out of here. You never take it for granted, at all.”

Van Horn said he delivered a message to the Razorbacks after they were dispatched 5-2 by Ole Miss in their only SEC Tournament game.

“It’s like I told the guys … you have got to go earn it,” he said. “Nobody’s going to give you anything. You look at who’s winning around the country, you start thinking you’re all that, you’ll get it handed to you. These guys, they stayed humble and they got after it and we get to hang out together again for at least another week.”

The Razorbacks’ final obstacle to an eighth appearance at the College World Series under Van Horn is a familiar and formidable foe. Tennessee, led by Van Horn protege Tony Vitello, is the defending CWS champion. The Volunteers took down Texas A&M in the finals for their first national title.

Arkansas took a series at Baum-Walker from the Volunteers just three weeks ago, falling 10-7 in the opener before taking 8-6 and 8-4 wins.

Those games are part of Arkansas’ current 6-2 stretch in which the last three results speak of a team finding its postseason groove.

Four players hit at least two home runs last weekend: catcher Ryder Helfrick, the regional MVP, hit three solo shots while shortstop Wehiwa Aloy, second baseman Cam Kozeal and left fielder Logan Maxwell banged out two each. Center fielder Justin Thomas Jr. provided a three-run shot in the second inning of the final to give starter Gage Wood a 5-0 lead in the finale.

Arkansas used nine pitchers in the regional and they combined to allow 6 earned runs on 19 hits and 7 walks over 27 innings. Half of those runs came on Ben North’s three-run homer in the finale, and that hit was one of only four against Arkansas that went for extra bases.

Wood had a career-high 13 strikeouts and Gabe Gaeckle added seven in his three-inning stint as Arkansas racked up a 20-0 strikeout-to-walk total in the finale.

“We saw some good arms the last two days when we played Arkansas,” Creighton Coach Ed Servais said Sunday. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a game where we struck out 20 times.”

Said Van Horn, “Our pitching staff just absolutely pounded the zone for three days in a row and gave us an opportunity to get off the field. I mean, if you look at it today and them you backtrack, we don’t walk people.

“Tonight we gave up … a three-run homer, but other than that, it’s maybe been a solo homer. You’re not going to get beat by those too much.

“We made them earn it. We didn’t make an error all weekend. We didn’t walk very many people all weekend. That’s a good combination to win games at this level, at any level.”

The Razorbacks hammered out 31 hits last weekend, 15 of them for extra bases, highlighted by the 10 home runs.

“You hit it out of the park, you score quick and that’s what we did tonight,” Van Horn said Sunday. “But it’s nice to know you’ve got guys in your lineup that can hit doubles. Like I always say, doubles turn into homers when you start getting a little older and a little stronger.”

The Razorbacks have an advocate in Servais, who shared time with Van Horn in the final handshake line with the veteran coaches complimenting each other’s programs and approach.

Servais said the Razorbacks’ array of pitchers whose fastballs reach the high 90s is impressive, but noticed something beyond that.

“It’s the intent behind the pitch that separated them,” Servais said. “They were very aggressive and very assertive in how they approached each pitch.

“We’ve seen velocity like that from time to time but not necessarily the intent behind the velocity that we saw with these two starters the last two nights. Again, if they stay healthy, I think they’ve got a chance to go a long ways.”