FAYETTEVILLLE - Arkansas didn't do anything fancy. It didn't do anything worthy of highlight reels.

It just got the job done.

Arkansas beat Alcorn State 9-1 in Baum Stadium on Wednesday night to satisfy the 1,117 fans who showed up.

Despite the lopsided score, Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn knew the Braves (21-8) wouldn't be pushovers.

"You know what, they've got a good offense," Van Horn said. "I mean, I thought (starting Arkansas pitcher Sam) Murphy did a good job.

"We could tell in the first inning, watching their hitters, they took a lot of pitches, took some borderline pitches and they were disciplined. Second time through the lineup, they were jumping at the first pitch, trying to catch up a little bit.

"They had some big-time averages, a lot of RBIs. I'll tell you what, we've played a lot of teams that aren't as good as them, I'll tell you that."

Arkansas broke a 1-1 tie in the second inning on Andrew Darr's two-run home run to left field.

"That was nice," Van Horn said. "It's one-to-one and he delivers that home run. We didn't think anything was going to was go leave here today unless you go down the line. He crushed it."

The Razorbacks (20-16) added another run in the third, courtesy of a solo homer from Jeff Nutt, also to left. That put Arkansas in front 4-1 and it never looked back.

Meanwhile Murphy did good job on the mound, picking up his first win of the season.

"He did a good job, he spotted his fastball," Van Horn said. "He threw the fastball for four or five innings and then they were getting on it a little bit and then he went to his breaking ball.

"He did a good job of getting that win for us.

"Overall, I thought we played good tonight. I'm really glad we got to play."