Phil & Tye hit on Dave chasing the natty, what it would mean for his legacy, Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball and more!
Four Razorbacks named All-American from D1 Baseball, Perfect Game
FAYETTEVILLE — As the start of the 2019 College World Series approaches, four Razorbacks were recognized by D1 Baseball and Perfect Game on the publication’s All-America squads.
Isaiah Campbell picked up second team honors from both outlets, while Matt Cronin received third team accolades from D1 Baseball and was an honorable mention selection by Perfect Game, bringing both of their All-America totals to five this season.
Additionally, Jack Kenley earned third team from D1 Baseball and Connor Noland landed on Perfect Game’s second team freshman squad.
Both Campbell and Cronin were named to the second team by Baseball America earlier this week after Campbell earned second team honors and Cronin third team honors from Collegiate Baseball.
Campbell also earned second team honors from the NCBWA and Cronin was named to the third team by the same publication.
Campbell and Cronin are the 11th and 12th non-freshman pitchers to be named All-Americans in school history and 16th and 17th overall.
It’s the first All-America awards for Kenley and Noland, making it back-to-back years Arkansas has had an infielder receive the honor and three consecutive seasons picking up a freshman All-American selection.
Following the footsteps of Blaine Knight into his redshirt junior year, Campbell has given Arkansas ace-like numbers all year as the Friday night starter.
With a team-leading 2.26 ERA, Campbell has garnered a 12-1 record and struck out 115 batters over 111.1 innings, which are all career-bests heading into the CWS.
Campbell is coming off, arguably, his best outing as a Razorback, working a career-long 8.1 innings in the NCAA Super Regional last week against Ole Miss, striking out seven.
Campbell has a 1.65 ERA in 16.1 innings of the NCAA Tournament this year and has pitched eight or more innings in each of his two starts.
Campbell, an Olathe, Kansas, native, was named a Golden Spikes Semifinalist last month, the first since Andrew Benintendi in 2015, and is just two wins away from tying the single-season school record of 14 wins set by Blaine Knight a year ago.
Campbell was drafted No. 76 overall to the Seattle Mariners in the 2019 MLB Draft, joining teammate Dominic Fletcher, who was taken one pick prior, as the first Razorbacks to be taken on the first day of the draft since Benintendi went seventh overall to Boston in 2015.
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 12 saves in 24 appearances, Cronin ranks in a tie for second in the SEC and 22nd in the nation.
His 27 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).
Cronin hasn’t given up a run in seven-straight appearances (8.0 innings) dating back to May 3 and two of those outings were more than one inning, resulting in two of his last three saves.
Cronin was also an All-SEC pick for the first time in his career as he was one of nine Razorback selected and was drafted in the fourth round of the 2019 MLB Draft to the Washington Nationals.
Kenley is batting .319 heading into the CWS, racking up 73 hits, 27 for extra bases, with 53 RBI and 55 runs scored. He rides into Omaha with a hit in 28 of his last 31 games, including five multi-hit performances in his last 12 starts.
In six games this postseason, Kenley is hitting .400 with eight hits, two doubles and a homer, with five RBI and five runs. Overall, he has 23 multi-hit games and 14 multi-RBI performances this year, which ranks third on the team in both categories.
Kenley was selected in the eighth round of the 2019 MLB Draft by the Detroit Tigers.
Noland has put together a 3-5 record this season with a 4.00 ERA in 18 starts and 19 appearances on the mound.
He’s rung up 53 batters allowed 33 earned runs over 74.1 innings of work. In the NCAA Fayetteville Regional, Noland tossed 5.1 frames against Central Connecticut State, allowing just two runs, one earned, on two hits, with two strikeouts in the 11-5 opening round victory.
It was the sixth time he pitched 5.0 or more innings, with a season-high 7.2 scoreless coming against Mississippi State on April 20 fellow SEC and CWS squad Mississippi State.
Arkansas (46-18) will play its first game of the 2019 College World Series on Saturday against Florida State (41-27) with first pitch from TD Ameritrade Park at 6 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPN.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Thursday
John & Tommy discuss DVH’s message to fans, mimicking success in basketball and football, plus Richard Davenport!
Van Horn with media prior to getting on bus for 10th Omaha trip
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn is headed to the College World Series for the 10th time (counting twice as a graduate assistant) and talked about it before the team left Baum-Walker Stadium.
Campbell talking about going back to Omaha as Hogs’ opening starter
Razorbacks pitcher Isaiah Campbell talked before getting on the bus for Omaha on Wednesday about how playing there last year is a benefit this season.
Ezell on going to Omaha, which was why he came to Razorbacks
Bryant native Trevor Ezell took the graduate transfer route to Arkansas and making the College World Series is why he came and that’s where he’s headed now.
Fletcher comfortable with Hogs being a favorite at Omaha
Hogs’ center fielder Dominic Fletcher talked Wednesday about getting back to Omaha for the second straight year and being one of the favorites at the College World Series.
???? Wednesday Halftime Pod w/ Phil Elson & Tye Richardson
Phil & Tye hit on the challenges that lie ahead for Arkansas, plus Change my mind!
Cronin, Campbell named to more All-American teams
FAYETTEVILLE — With the Razorbacks already in Omaha and Arkansas’ first game of the 2019 College World Series just three days away, two more sets of All-America teams were released this week as Baseball America and the National College Baseball Writers’ Association (NCBWA) honored right-handers Isaiah Campbell and Matt Cronin as All-Americans.
It’s the second and third time this year that Campbell and Cronin have been named All-Americans by various college baseball publications.
Both Campbell and Cronin were named to the second team by Baseball America one week after Campbell earned second team honors and Cronin third team honors from Collegiate Baseball.
Campbell also earned second team honors from the NCBWA and Cronin was named to the third team by the same publication. Campbell and Cronin are the 11th and 12th non-freshman pitchers to be named All-Americans in school history and 16th and 17th overall.
Following the footsteps of Blaine Knight into his redshirt junior year, Campbell has given Arkansas ace-like numbers all year as the Friday night starter.
With a team-leading 2.26 ERA, Campbell has garnered a 12-1 record and struck out 115 batters over 111.1 innings, which are all career-bests heading into the CWS.
Campbell is coming off, arguably, his best outing as a Razorback, working a career-long 8.1 innings in the NCAA Super Regional last week against Ole Miss, striking out seven.
Campbell has a 1.65 ERA in 16.1 innings of the NCAA Tournament this year and has pitched eight or more innings in each of his two starts.
Campbell, an Olathe, Kansas native, was named a Golden Spikes Semifinalist last month, the first since Andrew Benintendi in 2015, and is just two wins away from tying the single-season school record of 14 wins set by Blaine Knight a year ago.
Campbell was drafted No. 76 overall to the Seattle Mariners in the 2019 MLB Draft, joining teammate Dominic Fletcher, who was taken one pick prior, as the first Razorbacks to be taken on the first day of the draft since Benintendi went seventh overall to Boston in 2015.
Cronin hasn’t given up a run in seven-straight appearances (8.0 innings) dating back to May 3 and two of those outings were more than one inning, resulting in two of his last three saves.
Cronin was also an All-SEC pick for the first time in his career as he was one of nine Razorback selected and was drafted in the fourth round of the 2019 MLB Draft to the Washington Nationals.
Arkansas (46-18) will play its first game of the 2019 College World Series on Saturday against Florida State (41-27) with first pitch from TD Ameritrade Park at 6 p.m.
The game will be televised on ESPN.
Bud Light Morning Rush Podcast: Wednesday
John & Tommy discuss the Hogs heading to Omaha today, teams that scare you, Hutch and more!
Season shows why Van Horn may be best coach in college baseball
In a season that you get the idea has even caught Dave Van Horn by surprise, Arkansas finds itself back in Omaha and the surprising part may be they powered their way back.
Dave Van Horn has been considered one of the better coaches in college baseball for awhile.
Now he has to be in the conversation about the best.
And even he didn’t forecast this trip.
“It’s amazing what you can do with a little bit of hard work and a little bit of luck and a bunch of guys who believe,” Van Horn said after the Razorbacks stomped Ole Miss in game three of the super regional at Baum-Walker on Monday afternoon. “This has been one of the most gratifying seasons I’ve ever had as a coach because we weren’t expected to do much.”
Before the season, he told us this team might be a little over-rated because they were ranked by everybody. He gave us the impression after a couple of fall scrimmages this team might not even be ranked in the early polls.
After losing six starters off last year’s team that came agonizingly close to a title, it was understandable these Hogs didn’t get a lot of high rankings in the preseason. Nobody was putting them in Omaha.
“It’s hard enough to make it there once every now and then,” he said. “To get there two years in a row with a bunch of guys who that watched on the side last year — maybe weren’t even with us.
“The case of (third baseman) Jacob Nesbit, he didn’t make the travel squad. He was playing summer ball right now. Today he gets a big double, makes a great diving play to end the game. What a thrill.”
Van Horn is a coach that works with 11.7 scholarships a year. He’s as good at recruiting as any coach in any sport in school history. Blame the kangaroo court that governs college athletics for what is an absolutely ridiculous restriction, but it’s what he has to work with … every year.
“Sometimes you can’t get everybody you want,” he said. “They end up on other teams you play and people wonder why you can’t get ’em because you offer less than somebody else. They call you and say they want to go there but somebody else is offering me this and we say we can’t and they go somewhere else.
“It happens all the time.”
He broke down a philosophy that requires a lot of juggling, psychology and probably downright guessing based on hunches.
“You’re going to put a lot of money into pitching,” Van Horn said. “You’re going to try to be good up the middle. You gotta develop, get some guys on the minimum scholarship, which is 25 percent and you gotta hope that they have a little bit of an edge because they’re not on as much as somebody else. Plus, you gotta get some academic guys that are on academic only.
“Then when they all get here, you tell ’em, ‘I don’t care how you got here and I don’t care if you’re on a scholarship, if you’re a walk-on or a recruited walk-on … if you’re the best player you’re going to play.’ We don’t care.”
Oh, and one other thing that plays a role in it, too.
“You get lucky,” he said.
That’s the recruiting part that is just a part of it. It means nothing if they don’t perform on the field.
“You gotta go back that up,” Van Horn said. “We have to do that every year.”
Van Horn has proven to be as good at that as anybody in the sport.
“It was an incredible ride, journey — whatever you want to call it — this season,” he said.
Simmering below the surface, though, is the fact that winning a super regional is not the goal of the team, despite the celebration after Monday’s win.
Van Horn is downplaying it for the players and the fans to a certain extent.
“This isn’t pressure,” he said. “Having two car payments, a house payment, a wife and three kids and having to come home and tell them you just lost your job … that’s pressure.”
His message to the team is really pretty simple and straightforward.
“This is fun,” is what he told them.
See, that’s a big part of what makes Van Horn so good. He’s well aware that just one team has gone back to Omaha after losing in the final there the year before.
That was Virginia in 2015.
And in case you’re wondering, the Cavaliers won it all that year.
