HawgBeat's coverage of the Razorbacks' Road to Redemption in Omaha is brought to you by Arkansas Oral Surgery, which has offices located in Conway and Russellville.
OMAHA, Neb. — Arkansas’ season ended with consecutive heartbreaking one-run losses at the College World Series.
As could be expected, there were plenty of sad faces in the Razorbacks’ locker room after their 5-4 loss to Texas Tech on Monday, but several players had a positive outlook on the future.
Returning what it lost last year - six of nine guys in the lineup, two three weekend starting pitchers and a handful of key bullpen arms - Arkansas has its program in a position where Omaha is the expectation every year.
“It’s just kind of the nature of Arkansas now,” catcher Casey Opitz said. “You come in and you have to be ready to go, we’re trying to get to Omaha.
“We’re happy we have pieces back and we kind of showed this year that it’s more of a culture than any talent could do. It’s more about how you work and that’ll get you to Omaha more than anything.”
The Razorbacks had never made it to the College World Series in back-to-back seasons before this year, but now they have their sights set on a third straight trip.
Just as they were coming into this year, Heston Kjerstad and Casey Martin will be the centerpieces of the lineup as juniors. They don’t know anything other than a season ending in Omaha and Martin said he thinks it’ll continue in 2020.
“Honestly, this program that we run at Fayetteville, I don’t see why not,” Martin said. “Coach has done an outstanding job recruiting, we have a lot of good young talent coming in.
“I think this experience will be good for them, good for the older guys coming back, and I don’t see why not. I think our program is good enough for it.”
The most glaring piece Arkansas will have to replace for next year’s team is an ace. On he heels of one of the greatest seasons in school history by Blaine Knight, Isaiah Campbell was arguably better.
He went 12-1 with a 2.13 ERA, 125 strikeouts and only 22 walks in 118 1/3 innings. His wins, strikeouts and innings rank fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, in UA history for a single season.
“Campbell, you only get one or two of those guys every now and then - I’ve had one the last two years,” Van Horn said. “We’re going to have to find somebody or somebody has got to try to become that guy if we’re going to have an opportunity to make it this far next year.”
They may not put up the same kind of numbers, but two pitchers seem to be prime candidates to fill that role. Right-hander Connor Noland and left-hander Patrick Wicklander ended their freshman seasons in Arkansas’ rotation.
Noland was on the mound Monday, allowing only two earned runs in four innings, and finished with a 3-5 record and 4.02 ERA. Wicklander didn’t get a chance to pitch in Omaha, finishing the year 6-2 with a 4.32 ERA.
“I’m ready to get back to work as soon as possible,” Noland said. “These are sad faces and (guys are) down on themselves… It just drives me to get better and get back here.”
In addition to Kjerstad and Martin, the Razorbacks also return Matt Goodheart and the bottom of their order in Opitz, Jacob Nesbit and Christian Franklin. Pitchers Kevin Kopps, Kole Ramage and a few others will be back, as well.
That means the three players in the lineup who will graduate or begin their professional careers are Trevor Ezell, Dominic Fletcher and Jack Kenley. They’ll have to replace Matt Cronin, Jacob Kostyshock and Cody Scroggins out of the bullpen, too.
There is a lot coming back, but those guys were huge pieces to Arkansas making a surprising run to a top-10 ranking most of 2019 and trip to the College World Series.
It was a disappointing end for a team that came so close to winning it all the year before, but Van Horn told his team not to hang their heads as they left TD Ameritrade Park.
“It was a good year,” Van Horn said. “I know there’s a lot of people back home disappointed, but probably like me, if they just take a step back and take a breath and kind of realize what we replaced and how we did after we replaced all those players, it was a pretty good year.”
