UNC baseball falls to Arkansas, 4-1, in Game 1 of Chapel Hill Super Regional series
For the second straight weekend, UNC will have to do things the hard way if it hopes to advance in the NCAA baseball tournament.
Arkansas rolled into Chapel Hill on Saturday and, behind stellar starting pitching and a solid bullpen outing, won Game 1 against the Tar Heels, 4-1, in the best-of-three Super Regional series at Boshamer Stadium.
As they did in the regional round, the Tar Heels will now have to win two in a row to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Razorbacks (42-19), meanwhile, are one win away from their 11th trip to the College World Series. North Carolina (42-21) entered Saturday’s contest winners of 11 of its past 12 games and 19 of its previous 22.
Arkansas improves to 2-0 all-time against UNC. It was the first meeting between the two teams since 1989.
The Razorbacks rode the strong arm of Connor Noland, while the Tar Heels picked a bad afternoon to struggle at the plate. UNC had scored at least seven runs in each of its previous 12 wins. The Tar Heels went 8-for-34 at the plate against Arkansas. The bottom half of UNC’s lineup especially struggled, going a combined 3-for-20 on the day.
“You have to give Connor Noland credit,” Tar Heels’ coach Scott Forbes said. “He was able to locate that breaker at pretty much any count. You have to give credit to Arkansas, they just beat us today but we’ll come out rolling tomorrow.”
Early on, the game was a pitchers’ duel between Noland and UNC starter Max Carlson.
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The duo gave up a combined seven hits through four innings before either team scored a run. In the top of the fifth, Arkansas unloaded on the Heels.
Peyton Stovall got things started, hitting a solo home run, his fifth of the year. Arkansas scored three straight runs, one earned, following Stovall’s shot, eventually wearing out Carlson, who left the game in the top of the sixth. Carlson’s day ended after 91 pitches in 5.1 innings of work, having given up six hits while striking out four.
Nik Pry came on in relief, but lasted just three batters. Caden O’Brien came in for Pry and Brady Slavens scored Zack Gregory with a single for the Razorbacks’ fourth and final run.
Arkansas’ defense surrendered just three hits over the next three innings.
Noland was done for the day after 6.2 innings of work, striking out six batters. Most importantly, he kept UNC off the board.
“He had an electric slider today, he kept us off balance,” UNC short stop Danny Serretti said. “It’s tough to hit when you got your best pitch rolling.”
The Heels won’t change their aggressive approach regardless of who starts for Arkansas on Sunday.
“As good as Nolan was, top to bottom we only stuck our eight times,” Forbes said. “And he had an elite pitch, so we won’t change anything. Our guys looked great in the box and we couldn’t get that big hit.”
Evan Taylor came in and got the Hogs out of the seventh inning without surrendering a hit.
Vance Honeycutt, a freshman from Salisbury, got UNC on the board with a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth. It was the 25th homer for Honeycutt, setting a new single-season record for the Tar Heels.
UNC entered the bottom of the ninth inning down three runs, facing new pitcher Hagen Smith. Smith gave up a leadoff single to Mikey Madej to get the home crowd to its feet.
But Tomas Frick popped out, Smith fanned pinch hitter Eric Grintz, and Colby Wilkerson popped out to end the game.
“It’s baseball, you can’t win everyday,” Serretti said. “We’ll run it back out there tomorrow and try to get a win.”
UNC drops to 33-8 at home this season, and 23-3 against non-conference opponents.
First pitch for Game 2 is set for 1 p.m. on Sunday.
This story was originally published June 11, 2022 at 2:18 PM.
