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Hogs' bid for 3rd straight trip to Omaha fails despite Kopps' heroics

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Kevin Kopps was phenomenal in a losing effort Sunday night.
Kevin Kopps was phenomenal in a losing effort Sunday night. (SEC Media Portal)
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HawgBeat's coverage of the Diamond Hogs' Road to Omaha is brought to you by CJ's Butcher Boy Burgers, which has locations in Fayetteville and Russellville.

FAYETTEVILLE — Kevin Kopps seemed destined to end his career in Omaha. Instead, the final pitch he threw in an Arkansas uniform ended up in the Hog Pen.

The ninth-inning leadoff home run by Jose Torres came on Kopps’ 118th pitch of the night and gave North Carolina State a 3-2 lead that stuck in the deciding game of the Fayetteville Super Regional, punching the Wolfpack’s ticket to the College World Series.

It was Torres’ third straight game with a homer and this one came on what had been arguably the most unhittable pitch in college baseball this season.

“I was pretty much sitting on cutters all day,” Torres said. “It’s funny, I just got off the phone with my dad and he was talking about, ‘Yeah, he kept throwing you the same pitch, same pitch. You were on it.’ I was just sitting on cutter, looking for something up and I got it and put a good swing on it.”

The game was tied 2-2 entering the ninth inning and Kopps had already thrown 114 pitches, after throwing 21 the day before, but there wasn’t much debate about whether the Razorbacks should pull their ace reliever making his first start of the season.

Kopps said after the game that the conversation between innings was short and to the point, with the coaches asking if he was still good to go and him responding, ‘I’m good.’

“He was still pitching really well (and) we just tied the game up,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “That was going to be his last inning no matter what. There’s not much difference between 114 and 125 pitches. It’s all the same.”

Considering how efficient Kopps had been the previous five innings, it was no surprise to anyone else in Baum-Walker Stadium when he jogged back out to the mound to start the ninth - even though Patrick Wicklander had been warming up in the bullpen and was ready to go.

"I didn't expect anything different,” North Carolina State head coach Elliott Avent said. “I didn't even look to be honest with you."

Torres’ home run was an unfortunate ending to a gutsy outing by Kopps, who admittedly didn’t have his best stuff Saturday night. The right-hander consistently found himself behind in the count early on, which led to his pitch count climbing quicker than usual. He was at 57 through three innings.

Having not started since the final game of the shortened 2020 season more than 15 months earlier, Kopps said he was trying to pitch like a closer and putting too much effort into his pitches. When he recognized that, he leaned on something he heard from Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux.

“He talks about when he got tired, he just tried to hit spots more, when other people try to throw harder,” Kopps said. “I just tried to slow myself down and hit more spots and locate better vs. just trying to throw it by people.”

That appeared to work. Beginning with the final out of the third inning, Kopps retired 14 of 18 North Carolina State hitters - with one of the four who reached doing so via an intentional walk.

He needed just 57 total pitches to throw up scoreless frames in the fourth through eighth innings, which helped extend his outing.

“I thought late in the game he was better than he was early in the game, to be honest with you,” Van Horn said. “He made a mistake and I don’t even know how much of a mistake it was. I just think Torres went down and hit a good pitch and hit it a long way.”

Even though the ninth-inning home run led to him being credited with the loss, spoiling his previously perfect 12-0 record, Kopps still pitched well enough to win.

All three runs he allowed were earned, leading to his ERA jumping from 0.66 to 0.90, and came off of seven hits and three walks, plus he struck out nine in eight innings.

“You don't really beat a guy like Kevin Kopps,” Avent said. “You might outlast him, but I'm not going to say anything about beating Kevin Kopps. I've been around this game a long time. That's one of the great pitchers and one of the great performances I've ever seen.”

Decision to Start Kopps

Following the Game 2 loss to North Carolina State, Van Horn said he wasn’t sure who would start the final game of the Fayetteville Super Regional.

With Caleb Bolden out with arm soreness and Connor Noland having pitched in that game, his options were seemingly limited to Jaxon Wiggins or Zebulon Vermillion. Instead, about four hours before first pitch, Arkansas caught some by surprise when it announced Kopps as the starter.

The decision was actually made Saturday night, though. The coaching staff met about an hour after the 6-5 loss and settled on Kopps.

“We talked about how many pitches Kevin could throw and how many innings he could throw and did we want to bring him in as early as the second inning, and if you’re going to bring him in the second why not just start him?” Van Horn said. “He wanted to start, so that’s what we did.”

Kopps threw 185 pitches in the regional the previous weekend and has pitched on back-to-back days multiple times, but he ultimately had the final say and he was all in.

“Coach Hobbs just asked me if I wanted to start,” Kopps said. “He just said that I’ve earned the right, I guess, to tell them yes or no. I mean, my career and my teammates’ careers were on the line, of course I wanted the ball.”

Wallace Ties It Up

The only reason Torres had an opportunity to hit a game-winning home run in the ninth inning was because Cayden Wallace tied it up with a long ball of his own.

He hit it with two outs in the seventh inning and it just snuck over the left field wall. It was his 14th home run of the season, tying Heston Kjerstad for the UA freshman record.

“Wallace got on top of a fastball and he actually had top spin on it,” Van Horn said. “He hit it extremely hard, but it was sinking fast and it had a little over spin on it and it just got out of the park.”

The Razorbacks had been kept at bay the previous couple of innings, so it woke up the sellout crowd and energized the dugout.

“It fired everybody up, honestly, because all of a sudden it’s 2-2,” Van Horn said. “It looks like we’ve got a chance to hold them and get the lead. Kevin went out and got them out in the eighth and then in the bottom of the eighth, we didn’t score.”

Bats Disappear

Unfortunately for Arkansas, Kopps couldn’t pick up a bat and his teammates that could really struggled at the plate.

It took a leadoff error in the second inning for Arkansas to scratch across the first run of the game, as Cullen Smith moved Christian Franklin into scoring position with a ground out to set up an RBI double by Charlie Welch.

That was all the Razorbacks could muster against North Carolina State starter Matt Willadsen. He didn’t have particularly good numbers coming into the game, but he threw his fastball away and mixed in his off-speed pitches, which included an arsenal of a slow curveball, changeups with different speeds and a cutter/slider pitch.

“We had seen a lot of video on him,” Van Horn said. “The guys, they knew what was coming, but he kept them off balance. The first inning he got a couple of quick outs from our leadoff man and our three-hole hitter on ground balls off of changeups and that’s what we didn’t want to do. He just pitched really well.”

Willadsen went four innings and was followed by the Wolfpack’s two top left-handed relievers, with Chris Villaman going three innings and giving up the Wallace home run before Evan Justice closed it out with two perfect innings.

For the second straight game, Arkansas managed just four hits. It left the bases loaded in the second and a pair of runners on in the fourth after Matt Goodheart grounded out and struck out to end those innings, respectively.

“We just didn’t do much offensively,” Van Horn said. “We got four hits and hit two or three or four other balls hard. They were at people, but we just couldn’t get that big hit to put us over the top really the last couple of days.”

Even with 21-run outburst Friday, the Razorbacks didn’t hit very this postseason. Including the SEC Tournament, they hit just .227 as a team. Take out the first game of the super regional and that average dips to .202.

After ending the regular season with a .276 batting average, Arkansas saw it fall all the way to .267.

Early NC State Homer

Although Welch gave the Razorbacks an early 1-0 lead with his RBI double in the second, it didn’t last long. The very next half inning, Austin Murr drew a one-out walk and Jonny Butler hit a two-run home run to swing the lead to the Wolfpack.

Butler’s long ball, which came with two outs, was nearly snagged by Franklin, who made a great effort to keep the ball from clearing the right-center fence.

It was the second well-hit ball of the game for the hard-hitting left fielder, as he flied out to deep center to start the game.

“The first ball he hit in the first inning, he hit it to dead center and it didn’t go out, obviously,” Van Horn said. “That one there, he pulled a little bit more and he got a little bit of help. Christian still almost got it, but it got over the fence - but it was close.”

Other Tidbits

~With the loss, Arkansas finished with a 50-13 overall record. It finished one win shy of matching the single-season UA record.

~Arkansas' elimination from the NCAA Tournament means the No. 1 overall seed won't win the national championship once again. The only top seed to win it all in the current format was Miami (Fla.), which did it in 1999 - the first year of the regional/super regional format.

~Wallace’s clutch seventh-inning home run was the 109th of the season for Arkansas hitters. Not only did that shatter the previous UA single-season record of 98 set in 2018, but it also leads the country.

~Franklin struggled at the plate down the stretch and struck out in what were probably his final two at bats with the Razorbacks. That gave him 78 for the season, which was one shy of tying Casey Martin’s single-season UA record set in 2019.

~Despite throwing a career-high 99 pitches Friday night, Wicklander came in after Kopps and pitched the ninth inning. He got a pair of quick outs before giving up a double, but then preserved the one-run deficit by inducing a ground out. That lowered his season ERA to 2.09 in 77 2/3 innings.

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