After wiggling out of trouble in the first, Connor Noland locked in and threw his second straight postseason gem to help move Arkansas within one win from a return trip to Omaha.
The senior escaped a bases-loaded jam with a strikeout and yet another web gem on his way to 6 2/3 scoreless innings in the Razorbacks’ 4-1 win over North Carolina at Boshamer Stadium.
It was a particularly important victory because it puts Arkansas in control of the Chapel Hill Super Regional, as winners of Game 1 in the best-of-three series have advanced to the College World Series 79.5 percent of the time.
Early on, though, it didn’t look like Noland would last very long because the Tar Heels jumped all over him.
Angel Zarate singled through the right side on his first pitch, Mac Horvath turned on his second pitch for a hard foul ball before grounding into a fielder’s choice and then Danny Serretti sent his fifth pitch the other way for a double.
With a base open, the Razorbacks pitched carefully to freshman slugger Vance Honeycutt and it resulted in a four-pitch walk to load the bases.
Noland bounced back to strike out Alberto Osuna and then, with two outs, Mikey Madej — the MVP of last week’s Chapel Hill Regional — hit a line drive back up the middle.
Just like last week, when he was drilled by two line drives in the same inning against Grand Canyon, the right-hander appeared to knock it down with his glove and leg. It deflected back in front of the mound and Noland managed to recover in time to throw out Madej at first to leave the bases loaded.
“You have to give Connor Noland credit,” North Carolina head coach Scott Forbes said. “I thought in that first inning when Mikey squared up that ball and it hit off him and they got out of it, that was a big play for them and proved to be a really big play to keep us off the board for probably two runs.”
From then on, Noland seemed to be in cruise control. He allowed only four more base runners over the next 5 2/3 innings, with three coming on two-out singles and the other being a leadoff single. None of them got to second base.
Forbes pointed to his ability to throw his breaking pitches in any count as the reason for his success — a sentiment echoed by Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn, Noland and even Serretti for the Tar Heels.
“I think he started mixing a lot better,” Van Horn said. “When he started mixing, they probably started trying to hit some kind of breaking ball. He was throwing a couple different ones.”
“I think they were attacking the fastball in the first inning,” Noland said. “And then I started to mix in the slider a little bit more to keep them between the two off speed pitches.”
“He had an electric slider today,” Serretti said. “It kept us off balance. It’s tough to hit when you’ve got your best pitch rolling.”
Despite it coming on just his 89th pitch, the last of those hits led to Arkansas turning to its bullpen, as Evan Taylor got the final out of the seventh inning. That closed the book on Noland, who scattered six hits and one walk while striking out six batters in 6 2/3 scoreless innings.
Van Horn said he probably had another 15 or so pitches in him, but he also liked what he had available in the bullpen to finish it off, plus Zarate, the leadoff man coming up, is a lefty and Taylor has been very good against lefties this year.
“I didn’t want him to try to get the top of that lineup out for a fourth time,” Van Horn said. “I think three was enough. He’d already given us enough.”
So far this postseason, excluding the blown save against Oklahoma State in his first relief appearance of the season, Noland has been every bit of the ace he looked until a late-season skid. In two NCAA Tournament starts, the right-hander has allowed just one earned run in 13 2/3 innings.
“I’ve been working hard in practice, doing all the right things and I’m starting to see it pay off. I haven’t really changed a whole lot pitching-wise. I’m just making better pitches and executing. I feel confident in my stuff.”
Here are several other key takeaways from the Game 1 win…
Fifth-Inning Breakthrough
As good as Noland was, North Carolina starter Max Carlson matched him nearly pitch for pitch over the first four innings. The two teams that averaged double-digit runs in their respective regionals were locked in a scoreless tie entering the fifth.
“(Noland) was pitching lights out and he's going full head of steam, just cruising along,” Peyton Stovall said. “At that point, you know, we're kind of like an offense that's kind of looking at each other like, we gotta get this dude some runs for how good he's pitching.”
Stovall took care of that on just one pitch. After striking out on three pitches back in the third inning, the freshman crushed Carlson’s first-pitch fastball over the wall in right-center for a leadoff home run.
It was his fifth long ball of the season and continued his hot postseason hitting, as he went 8 for 16 in the Stillwater Regional last weekend.
“He was challenging on the first at-bat with some fastballs and he has a really good fastball — kind of came in and it almost looks like it's kind of rising,” Stovall said. “I knew my second at-bat he was going to go right back to it and I just want to put a good swing on it and just make solid contact. That's what I did and took care of the rest.”
That seemed to jumpstart the Razorbacks’ offense. Zack Gregory battled back from down 0-2 for a walk and then Braydon Webb and Brady Slavens hit back-to-back line drive singles.
The hit by Slavens resulted in an RBI and put runners on the corners, setting up a sacrifice fly on Cayden Wallace’s line drive smoked right at the left fielder. That made it 3-0.
“We got a leadoff home run there in the fifth, which kind of relaxed us a little bit, and we ended up scoring a couple of more runs after a couple of singles, moved them around and got a sac fly for that third run,” Van Horn said. “We really wanted to get that third run in there. Wallace battled, had a good at bat and finally hit a sac fly.”
Arkansas used back-to-back walks by Gregory and Webb to start the seventh inning to tack on an insurance run, with Slavens delivering another RBI single to push the run across.
Smith the Closer
Despite having its Freshman All-American closer available in the bullpen, Arkansas actually turned to its Freshman All-American starter to finish off the victory.
After throwing two scoreless innings to earn his first career save in the win over Oklahoma State that punched the Razorbacks’ ticket to the super regionals, left-hander Hagen Smith was once again called upon in a save situation Saturday afternoon.
“I think he had the confidence in that role, obviously, on the road in that tough environment (in Stillwater),” Forbes said. “As a coaching staff, I’m sure they talked about it and played it out like you should ahead of time.”
Facing the bottom of North Carolina’s order, Smith — after an 0-2 pitch that looked like a strike was called a ball — gave up a leadoff single to Madej.
He bounced back with a fly out for the first out of the inning, but then found himself in a battle with a pinch hitter. After Eric Grintz fouled off a few pitches and worked the count full, Smith blew a fastball by him for the second out.
“That would have got the tying run to the plate,” Van Horn said. “It showed a lot. He just challenged him. I think he came in with a fastball, I don't know, I liked what I saw.”
Colby Wilkerson flied out to center to end the game and give Smith his second career save.
Even though those two saves came in the Razorbacks’ last two games, Van Horn said he didn’t want to call him the team’s new closer.
“I just think he’s a guy that we have a lot of confidence in,” Van Horn said. “I felt like left-handed might be a good way to go at them to try to finish it up. Got confidence in the other guys, too, I just think he’s one of our guys that we feel good about finishing up a game.”
Other Tidbits
~Had the game been played in a ballpark with normal dimensions, Arkansas likely would have had a 2-0 lead with a pair of solo home runs in the first inning. Instead, Webb and Wallace came away with deep fly outs shy of the 340-foot wall in right field.
~That turned out to be the only time Webb was retired Saturday. He ended up notching three singles — two on hard line drives and the third on a bunt — and a walk out of the Razorbacks’ leadoff spot. In six games since moving back to the top of the order, Webb is slashing .308/.438/.500.
~The Tar Heels’ lone run came on a two-out solo home run by Vance Honeycutt in the eighth inning. It was his 25th long ball of the season, breaking the North Carolina freshman record held by Devy Bell since 1986.
Up Next
Arkansas will try to punch its ticket to the College World Series by winning Game 2 of the Chapel Hill Super Regional at noon CT Sunday.
Junior left-hander Brandon Schaeffer (3.73 ERA, 91.2 IP) will get the nod for North Carolina, while the Razorbacks have yet to name a starter. All Van Horn wanted to reveal after the game was that it’d be a right-hander or a left-hander.
The most likely candidates are sophomore right-hander Jaxon Wiggins (6.12 ERA, 64.2 IP), redshirt sophomore right-hander Will McEntire (3.25 ERA, 36 IP) and junior left-hander Zack Morris (1.91 ERA, 33 IP).
Wiggins has been a weekend starter most of the season, McEntire has started six games and Morris made his first career start in the Stillwater Regional last week.
Offensively, Arkansas has typically struggled against left-handed pitchers this season, hitting just .254 against them — which is 26 points lower than what it hit against right-handers coming into the weekend. However, Schaeffer has been hit hard at times this year, with opponents posting a .291/.348/.431 slash line.
