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He’s not a fan of the taste, but Connor Noland did take a sip of Kevin Kopps’ beet juice before Saturday’s game.

Even though it wasn’t much, it was just enough for the right-hander to earn a Kopps-like three-inning save in Arkansas’ 3-2 win over Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament semifinals.

Noland faced the minimum, aided by a double play, with four strikeouts to help the Razorbacks clinch a spot in the championship game for the first time since 2017.

“Obviously, it's a different role that I'm used to, but I've been watching Kevin do this all year, so he kind of gave me some inspiration,” Noland said. “It was good to get out there and just close it out.”

When he brought Noland out of the bullpen to start the seventh, head coach Dave Van Horn admitted that the plan was for him to throw only a couple of innings.

However, he came out dealing with a two-pitch mix, using his two-seam fastball and 12-6 curveball mow down the Rebels. It went so well that the coaches decided they had to let him finish the game, which he did with just 30 pitches.

With Peyton Pallette going down with a season-ending injury and Zebulon Vermillion leaving Saturday’s with an injury, his performance could mean an expanded role for the Razorbacks in the NCAA Tournament that begins next weekend.

“Any time we can give a guy some confidence and a guy that's ready to go out there in postseason play, it's a big deal,” Van Horn said. “Connor did that tonight.”

Considering how his junior year has unfolded, positioning himself to help Arkansas down the stretch is no small accomplishment.

A weekend starter from Day 1 as a freshman and the Friday night guy during the shortened 2020 season, Noland missed nearly two months with an injury and has not started a single game this year.

“It hasn't gone the way I planned, but I knew my time was going to come in a big spot in a big situation like this,” Noland said. “That's all I can ask for, to go out there and perform with everybody, it felt great.”

Although he’s now 100 percent recovered from his forearm strain, the injury was still giving him problems when he finally returned to the mound against LSU. Pitching through some pain, Noland was rocked for six runs in just 2/3 of an inning.

That led to his ERA ballooning to 14.29, but he has rebounded by allowing just one earned run over five innings in three appearances since then, getting him back down to an 8.44 ERA.

“It looked like (his stuff) was working at LSU, it just didn't come out with that killer mindset,” catcher Casey Opitz said. “Today I could see it in his eyes that he was ready to go from the jump and that's what made the difference for him.”

Noland has shown flashes of his potential this year, but Van Horn said Saturday’s performance was his best in terms of putting together multiple innings in a row.

Opitz echoed that sentiment and even told Noland as much immediately after the game, repeatedly saying, “That’s you,” as he gave him a hug following the final out.

“That's the guy I've seen in the past and that's what he can do for this team,” Opitz said. “He showed it today, so I was pumped for him.”

As important as it was that Noland turned in such a solid performance, it was just as important - if not more - that the Razorbacks found a way to win a close game without the help of its ace reliever.

It was their 16th win by three or fewer runs this season, but just the third in which Kopps didn’t pitch - and first in more than two months. The last time Arkansas won a close game without the SEC Pitcher of the Year was on March 28, when it beat Mississippi State 6-4 to finish off a sweep.

“We needed to win without him and they did it,” Van Horn said. “It's a good feeling, really, (that) we won a tight game without Kevin. We won a lot of games without Kevin, but we scored a lot of runs or whatever.”

Scoring Recap

Despite both teams running low on pitching because it was the Rebels’ fifth game in as many days and the Razorbacks’’ third in four days, runs were at a premium Saturday afternoon.

Arkansas did manage to jump on Ole Miss starter Cody Adcock early, though. After a one-out double by Cayden Wallace in the first inning, Cullen Smith launched a two-run home run over the right field wall. Both extra-base hits came on the first pitch they saw.

On Smith’s long ball, which gave the Razorbacks’ a 2-0 lead, Van Horn said he couldn’t tell if it was a cutter or if Adcock just took a little bit off his fastball, but he said it definitely caught too much of the plate.