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Arkansas 2, Auburn 1: Ryder Helfrick’s 446-Foot Solo Home Run Sends Cinderella No. 7 Razorbacks to First-Ever SEC Tournament Championship Game

Matt TallariniMay 24, 202618 MIN READ
Arkansas 2, Auburn 1: Ryder Helfrick’s 446-Foot Solo Home Run Sends Cinderella No. 7 Razorbacks to First-Ever SEC Tournament Championship Game

HOOVER, Ala. — For the second straight day at the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, weather defined the night.

Arkansas is ranked at No. 12 in the Top 25 rankings that were published by D1Baseball.com on May 18 and Auburn is ranked at No. 6. The second semifinal game of the 2026 SEC Tournament had a two hour and fifteen minute rain delay from 6 p.m. CT until 8:15 p.m. CT in the middle of the fourth inning, after the storm that had hovered over the Hoover Met all afternoon finally let go.

By the time it ended, the No. 7 seed Arkansas Razorbacks had advanced to the program’s first SEC Tournament championship game appearance since 2004 with a 2-1 win over the No. 6 seed Auburn Tigers. Ryder Helfrick’s 446-foot solo home run to left field in the top of the eighth — at a 112 mph exit velocity, off Auburn closer Ryan Hetzler — proved to be the difference.

The Razorbacks (39-19, 18-13 SEC) face the SEC regular-season champion Georgia Bulldogs in Sunday’s SEC Tournament championship game at 2 p.m. ET on ABC. The Tigers (38-19, 17-14 SEC) are eliminated and await Monday’s NCAA Tournament selection show as a likely top-eight national seed and regional host candidate.

How Arkansas got to Sunday

It is now three straight elimination wins for the Razorback bullpen. Tennessee on Wednesday in the second round. Texas on Friday in the quarterfinals. Auburn on Saturday night. Across three SEC Tournament games, Arkansas has scored 18 runs, allowed 6, and thrown 21.1 scoreless innings of bullpen baseball.

The Saturday formula was the Razorback Cinderella formula in miniature. Cooper Dossett’s first start of the year. Andrew Petrovic and James DeCremer in middle relief. Collin Fisher with five outs (and a key strikeout of Connor Fralick). Ethan McElvain on the back end of 3.1 dominant innings to close it out.

“I thought our pitchers did a tremendous job,” head coach Dave Van Horn said in his postgame. “Dossett’s first start of the year, gives us a couple innings, gives up one hit that goes out of the park. DeCremer, he was pretty tired, gave us one inning. And then obviously Collin Fisher gave us five outs. They hit some balls hard on him, but he got a big strikeout on Fralick. And then McElvain came in and we were just hoping that he would get through that inning and then give us what he had. We thought maybe 60 pitches if it went well. He went through their lineup the first time pretty good. Then the second time, they had seen him a little bit and the swings were maybe a little better, he was getting a little tired. He’s not used to getting up and down so much, that was a concern for us. But he did a great job throwing strikes and letting our defense work.”

McElvain finished with 3.1 innings of one-run baseball and the win, his sixth of the year (6-0).

For the Razorbacks, who entered the SEC Tournament unranked in some bracketology projections and as the conference’s No. 7 seed, the run from Hoover Met now spans 12 straight nights in the same hotel. The team has been on the road continuously since the regular-season finale against Kentucky in Fayetteville.

“We’ve been on the road for, like, this’ll be our 11th or 12th night in a hotel in a row, so whatever,” Van Horn said. “Guys are just loose, and let’s go play. It’s been a great week and let’s see if we can finish it off.”

Bub Terrell sets the early tone

Auburn did not get on the board first until the bottom of the second inning, when left fielder Bub Terrell cracked a solo home run off the right-center field scoreboard, traveling 414 feet for his 16th of the year, to go up 1-0.

Terrell — Auburn’s All-SEC sophomore left fielder, who had been pinch-hit for earlier in the season and described that moment as “the most brutal thing it feels” in the postgame — was the offensive heartbeat of the Tigers’ afternoon. The home run was his second of the SEC Tournament.

He wasn’t done. In the top of the fourth inning, Arkansas second baseman Nolan Souza launched what looked like a two-run home run to dead center field. Terrell tracked back to the wall, timed his jump, and brought it back.

“Yeah, it was early in the game, and the wind was blowing a lot,” Terrell said in his postgame. “Before that inning, I had went out and tracked my steps and seen how far — how many steps it takes to get to the wall. That’s a routine, as Gabe lets us do. I went up to the wall and I caught it, thank God, because it was definitely going over.”

Asked what the feeling was knowing he’d saved his team two runs in a 1-0 game: “It felt amazing. With the pitching staff we have, if we save any run, I feel like they can go the distance, and that’s exactly what it felt like.”

Head coach Butch Thompson, asked about Terrell in the postgame, returned to the same word: “I knew where I was. I asked Gabe, like, what did Bub say about that play? And I wrote it down — he said, I knew where I was. I thought that was an increasingly difficult catch — for me one of the best I can remember in a while. Because a lot of times those balls hang up or the wind’s kind of blowing in. That ball started pushing and it was going out and he absolutely — I’m convicted and I believe the statement, he knew where he was, because he timed the jump and the ball is still pushing out of the ballpark and it was an amazing catch.”

The catch saved two runs. The rain came moments later.

The two-hour, fifteen-minute interruption

The weather delay began at 6:02 p.m. CT in the middle of the fourth inning. Play did not resume until 8:15 p.m. CT. The storm had been visible over the Hoover Met all afternoon — gray, low, hanging just over the right-field scoreboard — and when it finally arrived, both teams went to their clubhouses for what would become a 2:15 stoppage in a single-elimination semifinal.

It was the second straight day a rain delay played a defining role at the Met. (See our recap of Saturday’s Georgia-Florida semifinal for the other delay-defined comeback.)

McElvain was asked about the time inside.

“I think being inside and being able to stay focused with the guys and everything was huge,” he said. “Nobody was really straying from the plan. It just, it was just working. Ryder was doing a really good job behind the plate calling pitches for me, and just throw the ball forward, try to throw strikes, try to get outs.”

Helfrick added: “I would say during the Florida rain delay we were pretty calm. And then during our rain delay we had energy. We were just kind of keeping the vibes high and it was fun.”

And Van Horn revealed how the time actually passed in the Arkansas clubhouse: “For the first hour it was pretty laid back, and we had a little bit of food brought in. Then we finally got the game on, and we had four TVs in there, so guys were sitting all over the place. But then when it got to the end, they all got together and they wanted to celebrate.”

What they were celebrating: the Arkansas softball team’s win in the Norman Super Regional, advancing head coach Courtney Deifel’s program to the Women’s College World Series. The Razorback baseball team watched the final outs together during their own rain delay.

“My thought about Courtney and her program is that she’s one of the best coaches in the country,” Van Horn said. “They have been so close and I know the misery of losing a super regional and it’s happened to them a few times. I was just super happy for her, happy for her family, all the coaches, and obviously all the young ladies. They have such a good team. I actually videoed it from the back side and I think my video’s better than the one they did from the side.” (Laughs.)

Play resumed at 8:15 p.m. CT. The Razorback bullpen got loose. The Hoover Met crowd, half Arkansas, half Auburn, settled back in. And in the top of the fifth, the Razorbacks finally got on the board.

The Kozeal RBI single

Reese Robinett got it started with a one-out double to center field. Two batters later, with Robinett on third and two outs, Arkansas shortstop Cam Kozeal — who’d been the offensive star of the tournament with a 2-for-3, 2-HR night against Texas one day earlier — drilled an RBI single through the right side of the infield to score Robinett.

Tied 1-1. Kozeal was now 3-for-6 with three RBIs and two home runs across the Razorbacks’ two semifinal/quarterfinal days.

“The other RBI was Kozeal with two strikes, and he hit a ball where we were not trying to throw him a strike as much as how hot he has been,” Thompson said. “So he’s chased us below — gets a fastball up. Just your best players need to play really good this time of year, and that’s what it comes down to in the ball game.”

Thompson then made the move Van Horn had expected him to make all afternoon: he brought in his ace reliever Ryan Hetzler.

Hetzler dominant — until he wasn’t

For five innings, Auburn’s All-SEC right-hander Ryan Hetzler was every bit the closer he’d been all season. Through 8 batters, he was perfect. Through 13, he had retired all but the bottom of the fifth inning — striking out 8, walking 0, allowing 3 hits, and giving up 0 runs.

The performance was a snapshot of why Auburn had used so few pitchers in its tournament run. Across three Hoover Met wins entering Saturday, the Tigers had used Jake Marciano, Jackson Sanders, Andreas Alvarez, LJ Cormier, Andrew Petrovic, and Hetzler — six pitchers total. Auburn’s pitching staff, as Thompson described it Wednesday after the LSU win, was “absolutely committed” to the strike zone. The numbers told the same story Saturday: 15 strikeouts to 2 walks. Two pitchers (Petrovic + Hetzler) total.

But baseball has a way of finding the best player on the field. And in the top of the eighth, with two outs and the bases empty, the moment found Ryder Helfrick.

Helfrick — who’d been 0-for-10 across his first three SEC Tournament games — turned on a 3-2, 2-1 count and crushed a slider 446 feet over the left field wall at 112 mph exit velocity. Razorbacks 2, Tigers 1.

The dugout erupted.

“He has done an incredible job catching, and has been a great offensive player,” Van Horn said. “He was pretty frustrated, and he took it all out on that slider. It was great to see. Our dugout was electric.”

Helfrick, asked about going 0-for-10 entering the at-bat: “Yeah, I mean, I think anybody that goes 0-for-10, they’re going to be frustrated. But just sticking with it and keep it real simple. Don’t try to do too much. Just get a pitch I can do damage on, I can handle, and keep it as simple as that.”

The other detail Van Horn revealed in the postgame: it was the third time Helfrick has homered against Auburn in big moments in his Razorback career.

“It’s not that Auburn’s done anything different. It’s just the timing. He just hit ’em,” Van Horn said. “He got him a breaking ball, and Ryan had been throwing such good pitches, especially with that breaking ball away. But that one, I think it started at him and ended up in the middle of the plate, and he saw it. You could just tell he was on it. Happy for him. I’m glad we’re not playing extra innings because I don’t know who I would have thrown.”

Thompson, on the same pitch from the Auburn side: “Whatever you do — it’s Helfrick, and we were absolutely targeting him because he’s played great against us his whole career. But the 3-2, 2-1, we have a job to do as pitchers, and I think we just made a pitch we would love to have back. He has a knack for that moment.”

McElvain closes the door

With Auburn now down to its final two innings, Arkansas left McElvain in to finish. The left-hander, who hadn’t pitched since the previous weekend against Kentucky, worked through the back end of the Auburn lineup.

In the bottom of the eighth, Eric Guevara — Auburn’s center fielder — lined out to second base. Bingaman singled to left center. Fralick struck out swinging. Rembert struck out looking. The threat ended.

In the bottom of the ninth, Bub Terrell popped up to third base. Bristol McCraine struck out swinging. Mason McCraine flied out to left field. The game ended at 9:42 p.m. CT — two hours and twenty-eight minutes of actual playing time, eclipsed by a 2:15 rain delay that turned the night into a six-hour ballpark experience.

Helfrick on McElvain: “Throw the ball forward, try to throw strikes, try to get outs.”

That was the whole night.

What Auburn takes home

For Butch Thompson, the loss was the kind he had a hard time fully unpacking afterward. The Tigers (38-19, 17-14 SEC) had out-hit Arkansas 7 to 5, gotten elite arms from Petrovic and Hetzler, gotten Bub Terrell’s bat to fire, and lost on one swing.

“Disappointed with the outcome, but absolutely thought this was great training, even the rain delay,” Thompson said in his postgame. “We feel like Petrovic is going to go six or seven innings every time he takes the field, but no excuses, and Hetzler comes in and goes the rest of the way. I think we threw two pitchers each and every game.”

Auburn’s strikeout-to-walk gap for the tournament: 15-2 on Saturday alone. Eric Guevara’s at-bat in the eighth was the one Thompson kept coming back to. “I really keyed in on the Guevara two at-bats where — this is one of those nights where it just didn’t work. If his is a little bit more toward left field, I think we got a shot. I think the ball he hit to second base was as hard as you could hit a baseball in the moment.”

Asked about the strikeout-to-walk philosophy that has defined Auburn’s tournament: “I’m trying to teach these pitchers to shove it in the strike zone. It feels like we were close to 70 percent or maybe north of that tonight. At my stage of my career I want a pitching staff that’s absolutely committed to that, even if one of their guys hits a home run, as opposed to walking nine or 10 and not giving yourself a chance and playing Russian roulette that way. I’m done with that.”

The Tigers head home, await Monday’s selection show, and prepare to host an NCAA Regional at Plainsman Park beginning Friday.

“Next week we prepare and do the same things and see if we can’t just find a little bit of the power of one — one more little thing to put in for another opportunity to win a championship,” Thompson said. “This one has the ultimate consequence, so if you don’t win this championship this next week, that’s the end of the road.”

The Beefus moment

In the late innings, a moth landed on the Hoover Met infield. It moved, briefly. Then it stopped. The r/CollegeBaseball game thread became consumed.

“Beefus ‘the Bee,'” wrote crsnyder13. “They did not come here to play school.”

“All Hail Beefus the Rally Bee,” posted trick96. “I have no idea who is pitching tomorrow. We’ll probably get murdered but it was a very fun ride to get here lol.”

“Rally Moth!” added superdupermensch.

By the time Helfrick rounded the bases, the Reddit thread had moved on to demanding that the Arkansas dugout “let the moth go” — a campaign that continued through the ninth inning and into the postgame thread. Late Saturday night, one Razorback fan posted: “If Arkansas doesn’t host, can we at least end up in Morgantown with The Moth. The prophecy foretold this.”

When asked about the moth in his postgame press conference, Helfrick didn’t break.

“I don’t know anything about that,” he said.

The moth — by Arkansas fan accounts — has since been promoted to the Razorback rally mascot for Sunday.

What’s next

The Arkansas Razorbacks face the No. 1 seed Georgia Bulldogs in Sunday’s SEC Tournament championship game at 2 p.m. ET on ABC — the first championship game appearance for the Razorbacks since 2004. (See our full championship game preview for TV/streaming, pitching matchup, and the regular-season-series context.)

Van Horn, on the Sunday rotation: “We’re not even sure who we’re going to start yet, not even sure who is available. Guys are just loose, and let’s go play. It’s been a great week and let’s see if we can finish it off.”

The two teams met in Fayetteville in early April. Georgia took 2-of-3, including a 26-14 outburst in Game 3 that ranks as Arkansas’s worst home defeat of the season. Van Horn was direct about it in the postgame: “That was a little embarrassing. I think we’ve grown a lot since that series. The team’s gotten a lot closer offensively, we’ve gotten a lot better. The pitching has gotten better, it’s more consistent. I just feel like the team — they like hanging out together.”

What the Razorbacks bring to Sunday: a fully rested McElvain, Gabe Gaeckle still available after Friday’s 6-inning relief outing, Cooper Dossett available again, and a healthy bullpen depth that has now thrown 21.1 scoreless tournament innings. Hunter Dietz, the All-SEC ace who left Friday’s game after taking a comebacker off his shin, remains a question.

Asked about managing the staff: “I don’t think we’ve over-stressed anybody and fatigued ’em that they won’t be able to recover.”

The Razorbacks lift off Sunday morning still chasing the program’s first SEC Tournament title since 2000. The Bulldogs lift off chasing their first ever.

12 nights in a Hoover hotel. One trophy left.

By the Numbers

Score: Arkansas 2, Auburn 1 (FINAL)
Hits: Auburn 7, Arkansas 5
Errors: Auburn 1, Arkansas 0
Walks: Auburn 1 (1 intentional), Arkansas 2
Strikeouts: Arkansas 15, Auburn 6
Home runs: Arkansas 1 (Helfrick). Auburn 1 (Terrell).
Rain delay: 2 hours, 15 minutes (6:02-8:15 p.m. CT), middle of the 4th inning
Game time: 2 hours, 28 minutes (playing time)
Arkansas now: 39-19 (18-13 SEC). Advances to SEC Tournament championship game — first since 2004 — Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on ABC vs. No. 1 Georgia.
Auburn now: 38-19 (17-14 SEC). Eliminated; awaits Monday NCAA selection show as potential top-eight national seed and Plainsman Park regional host.

D1Baseball rankings (May 18): Auburn No. 6, Arkansas No. 12

Arkansas pitching: Cooper Dossett 2.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K (started). James DeCremer 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K. Collin Fisher 1.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB (intentional), 2 K. Ethan McElvain (W, 6-0) 3.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K (save).

Auburn pitching: Andrew Petrovic 4.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K (started). Ryan Hetzler (L, 4-2) 5.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K.

Arkansas hitting leaders: Cam Kozeal 2-for-3, 1 RBI, 1 BB. Reese Robinett 1-for-4, 2B, 1 R. Ryder Helfrick 1-for-4, HR (game-winner), 1 RBI, 1 R. Damian Ruiz 0-for-4. Carter Rutenbar 0-for-2, 2 BB. TJ Pompey 1-for-4, SB. Nolan Souza 0-for-4. Maika Niu 0-for-4, 2 K. Caleb Stewart 0-for-4, 3 K.

Auburn hitting leaders: Bub Terrell 1-for-4, HR (16th), 1 RBI, 1 R (also robbed Souza of a two-run HR with a wall-saving catch). Lucas Steele 1-for-3, 2B. Bristol Carter 1-for-4, 1 SB. Cooper Rembert 1-for-3, 1 SO. Eric Guevara 0-for-4. Mason McCraine 1-for-4. Bub McCraine 1-for-3, 2B. Connor Fralick 0-for-2, 1 BB (intentional), 2 K. Ethin Bingaman 1-for-4.

Key moments:
– Bottom 2nd: Bub Terrell’s 414-foot solo HR off the right-center scoreboard makes it 1-0 Auburn.
– Top 4th: Terrell tracks back to the wall and robs Nolan Souza of a two-run HR. Two runs saved with the wind blowing out.
– Top 4th rain delay: Storm arrives, play stops at 6:02 p.m. CT for two hours and 15 minutes.
– Top 5th: Cam Kozeal’s two-out RBI single through the right side scores Robinett. Tied 1-1.
– Top 8th: Ryder Helfrick’s 446-foot solo home run off Ryan Hetzler. 112 mph exit velocity. Razorbacks lead 2-1.
– Bottom 9th: Ethan McElvain closes out the inning to send Arkansas to Sunday.

Bullpen note: Across the SEC Tournament so far, Arkansas’s bullpen has thrown 21.1 scoreless innings combined across the Tennessee (Wednesday), Texas (Friday), and Auburn (Saturday) wins.

The Razorback tournament run: 38-19 entering the tournament. 39-19 after three wins. First SEC Tournament championship game since 2004.

For more on the 2026 SEC Tournament

2026 SEC Baseball Tournament Schedule

All times Eastern.

Tuesday, May 19 — First Round
Game 1: Missouri 10, Ole Miss 8
Game 2: Vanderbilt 8, Kentucky 5
Game 3: Tennessee 11, South Carolina 6
Game 4: LSU 6, Oklahoma 2

Wednesday, May 20 — Second Round
Game 5: Mississippi State 12, Missouri 2 (7 inn.)
Game 6: Florida 8, Vanderbilt 3
Game 7: Arkansas 8, Tennessee 4
Game 8: Auburn 3, LSU 1

Thursday, May 21 — Quarterfinals
Game 9: Georgia 5, Mississippi State 3
Game 10: Florida 13, Alabama 3 (8 inn., run rule)

Friday, May 22 — Quarterfinals
Game 11: Arkansas 8, Texas 1
Game 12: Auburn 7, Texas A&M 0

Saturday, May 23 — Semifinals
Game 13: Georgia 8, Florida 7
Game 14: Arkansas 2, Auburn 1

Sunday, May 24 — Championship (ABC)
Game 15: No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 7 Arkansas — 2 p.m. ET

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