Razorbacks coach Dave Van Horn along with starter Patrick Wicklander, first baseman Trevor Ezell and designated hitter Matt Goodheart recapping NCAA Regional.
Hogs roll past TCU to claim regional; will host Ole Miss in Super Regional
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas finished a clean sweep of the NCAA Regional on Sunday night, shutting out TCU, 6-0, to reach their eighth NCAA Super Regional in program history.
The Razorbacks (44-17) are back in the super regionals for the second-consecutive year. It’s the first time Arkansas has reach the supers in back-to-back years since 2009 and 2010.
It was also the eighth time an Arkansas team made it out of a regional without recording a loss.
Arkansas will face fellow SEC member Ole Miss in next week’s super regional as the Rebels finished off the NCAA Oxford Regional with three-straight wins.
As a top-eight national seed, Arkansas will host the super regional round of the NCAA Tournament, but dates and game times for the Fayetteville Super Regional will not be set until Tuesday. It will be the fourth time Fayetteville has hosted a super regional in school history.
Arkansas jumps out early
For the first time in the regional, Arkansas was able to jump on its opponent in the first inning scoring three times off TCU starter Jared Janczak to take a 3-0 lead.
It started with a one-out, two-RBI double by Dominic Fletcher, his 23rd double of the year and, then, followed with another double, this time from Jack Kenley to bring in Fletcher.
The Razorbacks held that lead for the entire game, finishing with their fifth shutout of the season.
Sunday’s win was Arkansas’ first shutout in a regional since a 3-0 win over Oral Roberts in the 2017 NCAA Fayetteville Regional. Arkansas also never trailed in its three games in this year’s regional, outscoring its opponents 20-6.
Wicklander follows suit with gem of his own
Just like Connor Noland and Isaiah Campbell before him, freshman lefty Patrick Wicklander handcuffed TCU hitters for five scoreless innings, allowing just three hits, one walk and seven strikeouts on 89 pitches.
The seven punch outs were just one shy of a season high and most since striking out seven against No. 18 Tennessee (April 27).
The Razorback starting pitchers had, arguably, its best week of the season in the Fayetteville Regional.
Combined, the trio of Noland, Campbell and Wicklander had a 0.99 ERA in 20.1 innings pitched and struck out 17 batters with only two walks allowed.
Goodheart, goodnight
Sophomore designated hitter Matt Goodheart put one of the final daggers into TCU’s season when he crushed a two-run home run off the scoreboard in right-centerfield in the fifth inning.
The blast was his fourth of the year and ended up chasing Janczak from the game. Janczak make it just 4.2 innings and allowed seven hits with five earned runs, but struck out eight.
As for Goodheart, the Magnolia native had four hits in the regional and has homered twice in his last four games.
Good play begins at home
Over the last three years, Arkansas at Baum-Walker Stadium has been nearly unbeatable.
This year, the Razorbacks are 31-6 at home and only lost one series, which was to future super regional opponent Ole Miss. Since 2017, the Hogs are 95-18 and have only lost three home series.
This year, the Razorbacks are averaging 8.6 runs per game at Baum-Walker and the pitching staff has a team ERA of 3.52, while holding opponents to a .219 batting average.
NCAA Fayetteville Regional All-Tournament Team
Catcher – Casey Opitz (Arkansas)
First Base – Trevor Ezell (Arkansas)
Second Base – Jack Kenley (Arkansas)
Third Base – Buddy Dewaine (CCSU)
Shortstop – Adam Oviedo (TCU)
Outfield – Heston Kjerstad (Arkansas)
Outfield – Johnny Rizer (TCU)
Outfield – Dave Matthews (CCSU)
DH – Hunter Wolfe (TCU)
Starting Pitcher – Isaiah Campbell (Arkansas)
Starting Pitcher – Connor Noland (Arkansas)
Relief Pitcher – Matt Cronin (Arkansas)
Relief Pitcher – Jake Eissler (TCU)
Tournament MVP – Isaiah Campbell (Arkansas)
Razorback quotables
“I thought it was just an outstanding job by Patrick Wicklander. Coming out as a freshman, packed crowd, a night game, had a little delay [because of lightning]. And he just came ouT and did a tremendous job. He only walked one. He did get behind some hitters, but he found a way to fight back from 3-1, 3-2 to get outs, strikeouts. He worked out of a jam or two and gave us a chance to really set up our bullpen to finish the game up.” — Coach Dave Van Horn on Patrick Wicklander
“It’s grown over the last few years. I think it was pretty good 10 years ago, but it’s continued to get better and better. I mean, did you watch the way our players acted when they won the game? It’s like just another game because they know they accomplished something, but they haven’t accomplished what we’re really trying to do. So, I don’t say anything to them after the game but we all noticed it. That’s what we want.” — Van Horn on the evolution of the culture of the Arkansas program
“I think they played with a lot more energy. Sometimes, maybe you see that maybe you need to work on certain things, but I don’t think you would change a whole lot because the players are nervous or uptight. On Thursday, I said, ‘I’ve had the opportunity to be in a lot of regionals and Super Regionals, I’ve been to Omaha a bunch of times and I’m not nervous this time of the year.’ I’m nervous during the season because it’s hard to get to this point. There are a lot of good teams that aren’t playing anymore. Now that we’re here, I just want you guys to go out and have fun. Let’s see how long we can play together. You need to keep things thing going.” — Van Horn on his team’s energy and focus this time of year
“I’m just thrilled. It’s been a fun ride so far. As the season comes to an end, it’s only going to get better, I know. So I’m just really excited and honored and privileged to be here.” — Trevor Ezell on advancing to the super regionals in his first year with Arkansas
“It honestly felt very good. It was probably the best ball I’ve hit with two strikes this year. As soon as I hit it, I knew it had a good chance of going. It was the best feeling in the world.” — Matt Goodheart on his fifth-inning home run
“We always feel great at home. We have the best fans in the country. They can change the game for us and we really feel that on the field. I think the other teams, when they come in to play here, can feel that.” — Trevor Ezell on playing well in front of the home crowd
“My thought process was is it’s a big game, just do what I can, throw up as many zeroes as possible. Whether there was a delay or not, just have to keep my head on right, just throw up as many zeroes as I could.” — Patrick Wicklander on the lightning delay before the start of the game
Schlossnagle, Janczak, Watson after TCU knocked out of regional
TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle, starting pitcher Jared Janczak and left fielder Josh Watson with the media recapping the Horned Frogs’ 6-0 loss to Arkansas on Sunday night.
Campbell’s strong outing lifts Razorbacks past TCU, 3-1
FAYETTEVILLE — Redshirt junior Isaiah Campbell tied a career-long eight innings Saturday night, holding TCU to just one run, as Arkansas defeated the Horned Frogs, 3-1, in front of 10,967 fans at Baum-Walker Stadium, sending it to the NCAA Fayetteville Regional final for the third-straight year.
Arkansas (43-17) will now await the winner of the Central Connecticut State and TCU elimination game set up for 2 p.m. on Sunday.
The winner of that game will have to beat Arkansas twice to advance to the Super Regionals. The Hogs will only have to win once.
Campbell out-dueled TCU starter Nick Lodolo and matched his career-best of eight innings pitched on 108 pitches, which he achieved last year in a 14-2 victory over No. 4 Kentucky (March 17, 2018).
He also gave up just one run on four hits and struck out eight, including two in his final inning of work.
It was just the third time this season Campbell had thrown into the eighth inning, but it was the fifth time he allowed one run or less in seven innings or more.
With the win, Campbell moves to 11-1 and has earned the victory in four of his last five starts.
With the way Campbell was throwing, the Razorbacks (43-17) didn’t need too many runs to top the Horned Frogs. All three of their runs were scored in the sixth inning after Lodolo was relieved on 93 pitches.
A fielding error broke up a would-be double play ball and the inning continued, allowing catcher Casey Opitz to deliver a bases-loaded two-RBI single up the middle to break up the scoreless game.
Opitz, who hadn’t recorded a hit in the regional yet, took an 0-1 fastball from Haylen Green and drove in Jacob Nesbit and Jack Kenley to make it 2-0 Arkansas.
It broke a streak of nine-consecutive bases-loaded situations that Arkansas had gone hitless in dating back to its series at Texas A&M (May 16-18).
Trevor Ezell followed with an RBI double in the next-at bat for good measure to make it 3-0.
Ezell continues to swing hot bat
Lost in the stellar pitching performance of Isaiah Campbell, redshirt senior Trevor Ezell turned in his first four-hit game of the season and eighth of his career after going 4-for-5 with a career-high three doubles and one RBI.
Ezell is hitting a blistering .700 (7-for-10) in the regional and has driven in four RBIs combined. He now has 22 doubles for the season, which puts him in a tie for first in the SEC along with teammate Dominic Fletcher.
Cronin slams door; picks up 12th save
There was no question who head coach Dave Van Horn was going to go to out of the bullpen after Campbell polished off his eight-inning performance.
Junior Matt Cronin was summoned for the ninth inning and earned his second save in three appearances, 12th overall.
He struck out just one of the final three batters he faced, but now has 27 saves in his career, just six behind Arkansas saves record-holder Philip Stidham (1989-91). The 27 career saves ranks in a tie for fourth among all active players in the nation.
Razorback quotables
“Just a really good baseball game. Two really good starters going at it. After each inning we were saying, ‘That’s round one. That’s round two.’ Just like it was a fight. Who was going to make a mistake or who was going to boot a ball or whatever. Both pitchers did a great job. When runners got on base they delivered pitches. We got a double-play ball. Just give them credit for matching us pitch-for-pitch and we finally put together a really good inning in the sixth.” — Head coach Dave Van Horn on his team’s win over TCU
“Give Isaiah a lot of credit. He gave us eight innings. We were getting real close to taking him out after seven. Coach (Matt) Hobbs and I, as a matter of fact, were down there talking about it kind of at our end (of the dugout). Do we leave him in? Do we bring so-and-so in? Next thing you know, Isaiah came around the corner and said, ‘I’m good.’ And we just looked at each other and said, ‘OK, we’re going to leave him in.’ I’ve taken him out many a time this year early and I’ve said, ‘Hey, we’re going to need this inning later in the season.’ I think tonight we needed that inning, that eighth, and he came through and got them out 1-2-3.” — Head coach Dave Van Horn on Isaiah Campbell
“I mean that’s actually a really good question. I don’t think so off the top of my head. The jump that he’s made. He’s always had talent that’s good, but to be so consistent. We’d see a little bit of what you saw tonight here and there. And you’d think how he pitched last year in Omaha I think against Florida where he was really good. But every week giving us a good start, it’s been fun to watch. Because of the consistency he’s made the biggest jump that I’ve seen.” — Head coach Dave Van Horn on if Campbell’s improvement from one year to the other is the best he’s seen
“I don’t think he’s scared number one. He plays pretty much every game. He’s a catcher obviously sitting right in there and comfortable in that area of the field. He doesn’t let a bad at-bat get to him and it’s just his makeup. He wants to be there whether he’s hitting .240 or .440. He doesn’t care. He just wants to have an opportunity to help the team win.” — Head coach Dave Van Horn on Casey Opitz being a consistent presence in the field
“Like Coach Van Horn said, they were talking about it in the dugout, and I just came up to them and said, ‘I’m good.’ That was kind of the end of the discussion. They said, ‘Alright, you’ve got it.’ My mindset was just attack hitters like I’ve been doing all night. Just get ahead of hitters and let the defense work and then the strikeouts came in that last inning.” — Isaiah Campbell on coming back for the eighth inning
“He was outstanding tonight. He’s been outstanding all year, but tonight you could kind of tell it was something different. Tonight was probably the best I’ve seen him keep control of his stuff throughout the whole game. You could really tell in the eighth that he still had command for every pitch in his arsenal. He just did a great job keeping hitters guessing and not leaving too many balls out over the middle and hitting corners. That kind of performance shows.” — Casey Opitz on Isaiah Campbell’s eight-inning performance
“Obviously, I heard it. We had a big crowd tonight, so it was kind of tough not to hear it. It gave me a little adrenaline to keep going and get through the eighth. For me, it was just staying in the present moment and just keep doing what I was doing all night and that’s what I did.” — Isaiah Campbell on the crowd reaction when he came back for the eighth
Up next
Arkansas moves on to the regional final where it will face either Central Connecticut State or TCU, which will play an elimination game earlier in the day.
Arkansas is 2-0 in the regional and the double-elimination rule will continue through the remainder of the weekend.
The winner of CCSU and TCU will have to beat Arkansas twice to advance to the super regionals, while Arkansas will only have to win once.
First pitch for Arkansas’ game on Sunday is set for 8 p.m.
Van Horn, Campbell, Opitz on needing one more win to advance
Razorbacks coach Dave Van Horn, starting pitcher Isaiah Campbell and catcher Casey Opitz recapping win over TCU to move within a win of winning regional.
TCU coach, players on loss to Hogs’ strong performance Saturday
TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle, starting pitcher Nick Lodolo and catcher Zach Humphreys on Hogs’ strong pitching and key hits in 3-1 loss to Arkansas on Saturday night.
Campbell, Cronin named to Collegiate Baseball’s All-American team
TUSCON, Ariz. — As the NCAA Regionals entered their second day Saturday, the first set of All-America teams were released this week as Collegiate Baseball honored right-handers Isaiah Campbell and Matt Cronin as All-Americans.
The two All-America selections are the most selected by Collegiate Baseball since 2007 when Jess Todd and Nick Schmidt were both named second team All-Americans.
Campbell highlights this year’s list for the Razorbacks as he was named to the second team for his first All-America selection of his career. It’s also the first such distinction for Cronin’s career as he was named as one of six relief pitchers to the third team.
With Campbell and Cronin’s selection, it marks the second-straight year a Razorback pitcher has been named an All-American as Blaine Knight took home consensus honors from Collegiate Baseball, Baseball America, D1Baseball.com and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers’ Association.
He and Cronin are the 11th and 12th non-freshman pitchers to be selected as All-Americans in school history and 16th and 17th overall.
Following the footsteps of Knight into his redshirt junior year, Campbell has given Arkansas ace-like numbers all year as the Friday night starter.
With a team-leading 2.37 ERA, Campbell has garnered a 10-1 record and struck out 100 batters over 95 innings, which are all career-bests heading into the regional.
Campbell is one of only two pitchers in the SEC (John Doxakis) with an ERA under 2.40, as well as 100 or more strikeouts and 95 or more innings. In 11 of his last 13 starts, Campbell has thrown six or more innings and 14 of his 15 starts have been five innings or more.
The Golden Spikes semifinalist has yet to allow more than three earned runs in an outing this year and hasn’t given up more than three walks in 27-consecutive outings.
Cronin has followed up his record-breaking campaign from a year ago and has continued to show why he is considered one of the best closers in the country.
With 11 saves in 22 appearances, Cronin ranks in a tie for fourth in the SEC and 31st in the nation.
His 26 career saves rank second on the Arkansas all-time chart, just seven behind career leader and former three-time All-American Philip Stidham (33 – 1989-91).
The Navarre, Florida native hasn’t allowed a run in five-straight appearances dating back to May 3 and has worked at least an inning or more in 20 of his 22 appearances this year.
Cronin was also an All-SEC pick last week for the first time in his career as he was one of nine Razorback selected.
Noland, multiple-hit performers lift Hogs past Blue Devils, 11-5
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas got off to a hot start in the NCAA Regional on Friday afternoon, defeating Central Connecticut State, 11-5, on the backs of four multi-hit performances and a strong pitching performance from freshman Connor Noland.
Noland, who picked up his third win of the year, got the nod to start the regional-opener and didn’t look rattled in his first postseason appearance.
He worked 5.1 innings and allowed only two hits with one earned run, while also not walking a batter.
It’s the third time this year he hasn’t allowed a walk in five or more innings and second-straight game he’s allowed two or less hits.
With Noland rolling through the Central Connecticut lineup, the Hog offense was able to put 11 runs on 13 hits with Trevor Ezell, Heston Kjerstad, Jack Kenley and Christian Franklin all recording two or more hits.
Ezell and Kjerstad both had three-hit games, with Ezell coming away with the best line of 3-for-5 with three RBIs, including a two-run home run in the eighth inning to cap the scoring.
Arkansas (42-17) was able to pick up its fifth-straight regional-opening victory dating back to 2014. The 11 runs scored is also the most scored in a regional game since an 11-10 victory over Missouri State in 2017.
The Razorbacks will now wait on the winner of California and TCU and will play its next game at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
You can listen to the game on ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.
Offense busts out
After notching only 15 hits over three games at the SEC Tournament last week, the Razorback offense knocked around the Central Connecticut pitching staff for 13 hits, it’s most in a single game since having 15 in a series-opening win over LSU (May 9).
The 11 runs was also the most since scoring 11 on LSU on May 10. Arkansas has scored 10 or more runs in 20 games this season and is 20-0 in those games.
Ezell and Kjerstad go deep
Part of the strong offensive showing came from the bats of Trevor Ezell and Heston Kjerstad during Friday’s game.
Leading just 2-1 in the bottom of the fourth inning, Kjerstad unloaded his 15th home run of the year just to the right of the batter’s eye in centerfield, making it 3-1 Razorbacks.
Kjerstad is now tied with shortstop Casey Martin for the team lead and has one more home run than he did a year ago. Kjerstad finished the game 3-for-4, adding in an RBI double in the bottom of the fifth.
Arkansas started to put the game away in the fifth and sixth innings, scoring three runs in each frame, but Ezell added two more for good measure in the eighth with a two-run home run into the Hog Pen in left field. It was Ezell’s ninth of the year and 25th of his career. The nine home runs is also a personal best for a single season in his career.
Noland shines while Kopps stops CCSU momentum
Making his 17th start of the year, Connor Noland was strong on the mound, going five or more innings for the second-consecutive week.
The Greenwood native retired the first nine batters he faced before Central Connecticut registered its first hit.
CCSU did get on the board later in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly, but Noland was able to recover and retire the final five batters he faced.
Redshirt junior Kevin Kopps followed Noland out of the bullpen in the middle of the sixth and struck out four over 1.2 hitless innings, needing only 28 pitches.
The four strikeouts ties a career high and it’s the sixth time in his last seven appearances that he’s gone an inning or more.
Razorback quotables
“I thought it started with Connor coming out and just throwing a lot of strikes. He got through the first couple of innings on probably less than 20 pitches. He had a lot of ground balls. When he’s getting ground balls, he’s the got the two-seamer sinking and running. He pitches to contact and that’s what we wanted him to do. Just a good job by our offense, big 2-out hits and just punching in runs here and there. I thought Central Connecticut did a really nice job swinging the bats. They battled us and they hit some balls hard. The game was never really in hand. We felt like we needed to keep scoring and just a good job by the team kind of getting it going better offensively. We only left four runners on base today so we got some big hits and we did a nice job of getting them around and scoring.” — Coach Dave Van Horn on the team’s 11-5 win over Central Connecticut
“I was hoping we’d break out. Sometimes you just have to think back to other seasons this time of the year, and how they finished. If you think about that 2009 season, we couldn’t get out of our own way at the end of the year then finally broke out late at the end of that first game of the regional. Then, we didn’t stop hitting. I was kind of hoping that would happen. We showed signs of breaking out today. We put together some good swings. I was just glad to see us drive in some runs because that had been a bit of an issue.” — Van Horn on the offense breaking out for 11 runs and 15 hits
“I thought he did a really good job of laying off some low pitches early. The at-bat where he singled, that was with two strikes and he laid off a pitch and then he threw him a breaking ball and he hit it through the first baseman and the second baseman and that got it going a little bit. (Kjerstad) was just being a little more selective and not going out of the zone after a lot of pitches when he got behind. That was really good to see.” — Van Horn on Heston Kjerstad
“I was just attacking the zone today. Throwing strikes, filling it up, keeping them off balance with off-speeds. I think that’s just really been the key for me having a successful outing. Just keeping them off balance and keeping them guessing throughout the outing.” — Connor Noland on his outing
“It was really good for our team to come out here. A lot of people had said we had struggled when we went out on the road at A&M and he SEC Tournament but at the end of the day that’s baseball for you. Your offense isn’t going to be hot every game of the year. Every series it’s going to come and go. But I just saw we stuck with it and kept our approaches and today it paid off and we put up runs like we had been most of the season. It was really nice for all of us.” — Heston Kjerstad on the offense breaking out
Up next
Arkansas moves on to the winner’s bracket of the Fayetteville Regional and will play the winner of TCU and California on Saturday at 6 p.m.
A win on Saturday will put the Hogs into the regional final.
All games tomorrow will be broadcast on the ESPN family of networks.
Van Horn, Noland, Kjerstad recapping Hogs’ win in opener
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn, starting pitcher Connor Noland and right fielder Heston Kjerstad recapping Hogs’ 11-5 win over Central Connecticut on Friday.
Blue Devils’ Hickey, players after falling to Hogs to start regional
Central Connecticut coach Charlie Hickey with players TT Bowens and Brandon Fox recapping the problems in the opening loss to Arkansas on Friday.
???? Friday Halftime Pod — Featuring Bubba Carpenter
Phil & Tye hit on Connor Noland’s impact, chat with Bubba Carpenter, and more!
