Super Regional Notebook: Starting rotation, injury updates, Kopps tidbits

FAYETTEVILLE — There is no surprise about who is getting the ball for Arkansas on Friday, but mystery surrounds the rest of the weekend.

Head coach Dave Van Horn announced Thursday that left-hander Patrick Wicklander would start the opener of the Fayetteville Super Regional, but he’s leaving the next two games open and won’t name a starting pitcher ahead of time.

“We’re going to do what we can to win Friday,” Van Horn said. “I mean, what rotation? We don’t have a three-man rotation. We’ve got a one or a two, and then we go from there, so we’ll just try to win tomorrow and figure out who we need to throw on Saturday.”

Left-hander Lael Lockhart is a strong candidate to start a game for the Razorbacks, but it’s unclear which day he’d get the nod. The Game 3 starter for much of the season, he has been the team’s second-best starter of late.

Although he was charged with four earned runs in 4 1/3 innings in a loss to Nebraska in the regional, Lockhart was one out away from a seven-inning perfect game at the SEC Tournament a week earlier and also pitched a perfect inning of relief in the SEC Championship Game.

Any one of three right-handers could be the other starting pitcher: Jaxon Wiggins, Caleb Bolden or Connor Noland.

Bolden, a redshirt junior, got the nod in the opening game of the regional after back-to-back four-inning starts against Florida and Ole Miss, but failed to get out of the second inning against NJIT.

A standout freshman with high expectations moving forward, Wiggins gave up just one earned run in 6 2/3 combined innings against Florida and Tennessee in his first two starts against SEC competition, but issued back-to-back walks to start the third inning of Monday’s elimination game against Nebraska and was pulled.

Although he hasn’t started a game this year, Noland has postseason starting experience as a freshman on the 2019 team that made it to the College World Series. Since a disastrous outing at LSU, he’s given up just one earned run on four hits and two walks in 7 2/3 innings across five relief appearances.

However, the only certainty for the Razorbacks is Wicklander starting Game 1 on Friday. Outside of star reliever Kevin Kopps, he is undoubtedly the ace of the staff.

The California native is 6-1 with a 2.17 ERA, 79 strikeouts and 22 walks in 70 2/3 innings and he was a second-team All-SEC selection.

Starting pitching outside of him has been inconsistent at times, but catcher Casey Opitz is confident the staff will step up to the challenge that North Carolina State’s dangerous lineup presents.

“Everyone has to level up,” Opitz said. “It starts tomorrow with Wick. We know what we're going to get from Wick. He's going to go out there and do what he does and give us a good outing and that will set the stage for the rest of the weekend."

Ace Emerges for N.C. State

The Wolfpack don’t exactly have any single pitcher whose numbers jump off the stat sheet, but four-year junior Reid Johnston is their No. 1 starter and has recently emerged as a true ace.

After spending the first month of the season as a long reliever, the right-hander moved into the starting rotation and has consistently gotten North Carolina State deep into games.

All 10 of his starts have been at least six innings and they average nearly 7 1/3 innings, plus he’s thrown 100-plus pitches in all but eight of those outings, with an average of 109 pitches per outing.