The 2013 University of Central Arkansas baseball team capped the best season in program history by winning the Southland Conference tournament and advancing to the NCAA Tournament, earning a berth in the Starkville Regional. In Starkville, the Bears defeated a pair of conference champions in Mercer (Atlantic Sun) and South Alabama (Sun Belt), and knocked off host Mississippi State to become the only team at the Starkville Regional to defeat every opponent.

The Bears ultimately lost in a winner-take-all championship game to the Bulldogs, who would go on to the College World Series championship series and finish as national runner-up to UCLA. Until the UCLA losses, Mississippi State's only non-SEC losses for the year came against Central Arkansas, splitting the season series 3-3 with all six games at MSU's Dudy Noble Field.

The Bears won eight straight elimination games between the Southland tournament and Starkville Regional before finally falling to the Bulldogs in the decisive game, ending 2013 with a program-record 42 wins, first Southland Conference tournament championship and NCAA postseason appearance, and a host of awards and first-time accomplishments. Forrestt Allday, Jonathan Davis and Jeffery Enloe would go on to be selected in the Major League Baseball draft, marking the first time that three Bears were taken in the same draft. Allday, an 8th round selection of the Boston Red Sox, was named First Team All-American by Rawlings/American Baseball Coaches Association.