What they're saying about NC State's win over Arkansas
Here are some the thoughts from those who covered NC State Wolfpack baseball's game three Super Regional 3-2 win over No. 1 Arkansas to advance to the College World Series.
What they're saying
Arkansas called the Kopps, but Justice was served on the N.C. State side.
Wolfpack freshman Evan Justice came in late and didn’t give up a hit in two innings, and Jose Torres hit a solo home run in the top of the ninth as N.C. State held off No. 1 seed Arkansas, 3-2.
With the win, the Pack heads to the College World Series for just the third time, and first time since 2013. N.C. State will take on Stanford in Omaha.
The Wolfpack cranked out eight hits, seven off Razorbacks starter Kevin Kopps. Kopps gave up two home runs, the last to Torres and the first to Jonny Butler in the top of the third, a two-run shot that put State up 2-1.
After being blown out 21-2 in Game 1 on Friday, N.C. State showed plenty of grit to win back-to-back, one-run games.
Coming into the game Arkansas (50-13) hadn’t dropped a series all season. The top overall seed almost pulled off the comeback, tying the game at two in the bottom of the seventh when Cayden Wallace took Chris Villaman yard, but Justice, who saw action on Saturday, had enough gas in the tank to shut down the Hogs and punch a ticket to the College World Series, which starts on Saturday.
“I’m just really happy for these guys,” Wolfpack head coach Elliott Avent said. “A lot of people talked about what a gut check win (Saturday) was, but I thought today may have been even a better gut check win.”
Joe Giglio, WRALSportsFan — Omaha! NC State headed back to College World Series
Elliott Avent has had 25 teams at NC State. None quite like this.
The Wolfpack is going back to the College World Series, after a dramatic 3-2 win at top-ranked Arkansas on Sunday night.
Shortstop Jose Torres hit a solo home run in the ninth inning off of Arkansas ace Kevin Kopps to take the best-of-3 Super Regional series on the road.
It’s the first trip to Omaha, Neb. for college baseball’s national championship since 2013 for NC State, and third in program history, but this team has cut a unique path.
"This is just a committed group," Avent said after the win. "They’re tough and they’re smart."
That 2013 team had superstars in shortstop Trea Turner and pitcher Carlos Rodon. This team has pieced it together as a true collective and with uncommon resiliency.
Torres hit the big home run but Jonny Butler, Matt Willadsen, Chris Villaman and Evan Justice all played equal roles on Sunday.
The Wolfpack (35-18) started 1-8 in ACC play, had its hearts broken in the ACC championship game by Duke two weeks ago in Charlotte and was pounded 21-2 by the Razorbacks (50-13) in the first game of the Super Regional on Friday against the No. 1 overall team in the 64-team NCAA tournament field.
Each time, the Wolfpack has had an answer.
“They believed early on when we were 1-8 that we could rebound and they stuck with it," Avent said.
Teddy Cahill, Baseball America — No. 1 Arkansas upset by NC State, falls shy of College World Series
Arkansas played like the best team in the country all season long. For 14 straight iterations of the rankings, the Razorbacks topped the Baseball America Top 25 – the longest streak since Stanford was No. 1 for 15 straight weeks to open the 1998 season.
The Razorbacks won big, they won late, they won pitcher’s duels, they won close, they won with offense, they won going away, they won thanks to spectacular defense, they won with clutch hits. They won 50 games and both the SEC regular season and tournament championships.
Arkansas beat all comers. It beat Kumar Rocker, it beat Mississippi State, it beat the top three teams in the Big 12 (Texas, Texas Christian and Texas Tech), it beat Tennessee, it beat Nebraska. Its losses were few and far between. It lost just 10 times in the regular season and lost back-to-back games just once – in mid-March.
The Razorbacks had plenty of star power. Relief ace Kevin Kopps is the favorite to win the Golden Spikes Award. Lefthander Patrick Wicklander emerged as a strong Friday starter. Second baseman Robert Moore and center fielder Christian Franklin are both high-end prospects. They had experience, they had youth, they had everything you could want in a college baseball team.
"They showed up every weekend and played hard, practiced hard and when they stepped on the field, they really wanted to win," coach Dave Van Horn said. "You don't see that all the time, week in and week out.
"We really don't have a bunch of super stars. We've got some good players, we've got some guys who are going to be drafted, but we didn't have that first-round type guy or first-round arm. We've just got a bunch of good players who play hard. They won an SEC regular-season championship and a conference tournament for the first time ever here."
But in the NCAA Tournament, the best team doesn’t always win. In fact, since 1999, the top-seeded team has not won the national title. That streak will continue this year, as Arkansas lost Sunday night to North Carolina State, 3-2, in the decisive third game of the Fayetteville Super Regional. The Wolfpack is going to the College World Series for the first time since 2013 and just the third time ever. It is one of the hottest teams in the country and is 20-5 since losing a series at Notre Dame in mid-April.
In an NCAA Tournament that has been short on Cinderellas – four regionals were won by No. 3 or 4 seeds, but two of those low seeds were Louisiana State and Virginia, hardly scrappy underdogs in the college baseball world – NC State this weekend supplied the biggest upset of the tournament. After getting beat, 21-2, in game 1 on Friday night, the Wolfpack bounced back for a 6-5 victory Saturday in an elimination game and then found a way to win game 3 Sunday, in a way that was decidedly reminiscent of so many Arkansas wins this season.
Aaron Fitt, D1Baseball — Fitt: Resilient NC State Slays Goliath In Fayetteville
There are so many poignant narratives, it’s hard to know where to start.
NC State toppled No. 1 national seed Arkansas 3-2 on Monday to clinch its first College World Series appearance since 2013, and just its second since 1968. Scaling that mountain to Omaha is always an impressive accomplishment, but it’s even more remarkable when you start the ascent from 5,000 feet below sea level, as these Wolfpack did by rallying back from a 1-8 start to ACC play this spring.
The Wolfpack punched their ticket to Omaha, Neb., the hard way. They became the first team to win a three-game series against the Razorbacks (50-13) all season, did it in front of a rowdy crowd of 11,084 at Baum-Walker Stadium and became the only team to score more than one run on and beat Kopps (12-1).
"I thought today may have been an even better gut-check win because Kopps starts and pitches incredible," Avent said. "He's absolutely everything that you've heard about. Sometimes you don't get what they describe, but he is everything and some of what you've heard about.
Arkansas had won all of its 14 series versus one team this season, plus a three-game sweep at the season-opening College Baseball Showdown and a four-game sweep for the SEC Tournament championship.
"What a great series. Just two tough losses the last couple of days," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "Really, you've just got to give North Carolina State credit. They played great. They got big hits and their pitchers did a great job."
Kopps, making his first start of the year and seventh of his career, made two key errors with his legendary cutter and they both left the yard.
Jonny Butler stroked a two-run home run to right-center field in the top of the third inning after a Murr walk to give the Wolfpack a 2-1 lead. Then Torres led off the ninth inning with a towering shot to left after falling behind 0-2 for his third home run of the super regional.
"I was just sitting on cutters, and I got something up and I was able to put a swing on it and hit a home run," Torres said.
Scottie Bordelon, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — Living by the long ball, Wolfpack eliminate Arkansas
At 103 pitches through seven innings, the right-handed Kopps returned for the eighth after freshman Cayden Wallace tied the game 2-2 in the seventh with a home run to left field. Kopps was at 114 pitches after getting through the eighth, but that did not deter Arkansas from leaning on him in the ninth.
“Well, the decision was that he was still pitching really well,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said of keeping Kopps on the mound. “We just tied the game up. That was going to be his last inning no matter what.
“There’s not much difference between 114 and 125 pitches. It’s all the same.”
Torres immediately knew he had unleashed the biggest swing of the game, flipping his bat in celebration as he looked toward his dugout.
“He throws a lot of cutters and I was pretty much sitting cutters all day,” Torres said. “It’s pretty funny. I just got off the phone with my dad and he was talking about, ‘He was throwing the same pitch, the same pitch, and you were on it.’ I was looking for something up and I got it and put a good swing on it.
“It was a feeling I’ll never forget until I die. It was awesome to experience that. The moment I was rounding the bases I was just focused, knowing we still had to add more runs because their offense is really great, then we’ve got to go play defense and get three outs. I just had to soak it up in the moment, lock in and finish the game.”
One of the top 10 home-run hitting teams in Division I, the Wolfpack lived by the long ball over the final two games of the super regional. NC State also hit three off of Arkansas reliever Ryan Costeiu in the fourth inning of Saturday’s 6-5 victory, turning the tide during a game in which the Wolfpack faced elimination.
The five home runs allowed by the Razorbacks in Games 2 and 3 tied for the most over a two-game stretch all season. Oklahoma (1) and Alabama (4) combined to hit five in 8-5 and 16-1 wins, respectively, at Baum-Walker Stadium in March.
Matt Jones, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette — Kopps shows true colors after Game 3 loss
The Razorbacks never took control. They scuffled through a four-hit night that included a 1 for 9 clip with runners on base, and 1 for 4 with runners in scoring position.
NC State didn’t fare much better, but the Wolfpack won with two big swings by Torres and Jonny Butler, and a collective pitching effort that matched Kopps.
Kopps threw 118 pitches, allowed 7 hits, walked 3 and struck out 9. After a shaky start that included 57 pitches over the first three innings, he got stronger and more efficient, and sat down NC State with 57 pitches between the fourth and eighth innings.
It was his second gutsy performance in less than a week. It followed a seven-inning, 90-pitch masterpiece six days earlier to beat Nebraska in the regional championship.
Kopps almost single-handedly willed the Razorbacks back to Omaha. He pitched 23 1/3 innings and threw 324 pitches in 5 appearances over 10 days in the postseason. The three runs allowed Sunday were his only blemishes.
“You don’t really beat a guy like Kevin. You may outlast him, but I’m not going to say anything about beating Kevin Kopps,” said Elliott Avent, the 25th-year coach of NC State. “I’ve been around this game a long time and that’s one of the great pitchers and one of the great performances I’ve ever seen. He is everything as advertised.”
The Razorbacks outscored NC State by a cumulative 17 runs in the super regional, but trailed 2-1 in the win-loss column where it mattered most.
After whipping the Wolfpack 21-2 on Friday, Arkansas’ bats fell silent before the roar of giant crowds.
“Really, you’ve got to give NC State credit. They played great, got some great hits and their pitchers did a great job,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “We had a chance to score but they made it tough on us.”
As NC State players dogpiled on the field, Arkansas players came to the realization their 50-win season had come to an end one win shy of the ultimate college baseball destination. The Razorbacks came together for an emotional final team huddle in the outfield, then one by one they disappeared into the dugout.
Fitting for the way he carried the team, Kopps was the final Razorback off the field.
Kevin Kopps seemed destined to end his career in Omaha. Instead, the final pitch he threw in an Arkansas uniform ended up in the Hog Pen.
The ninth-inning leadoff home run by Jose Torres came on Kopps’ 118th pitch of the night and gave North Carolina State a 3-2 lead that stuck in the deciding game of the Fayetteville Super Regional, punching the Wolfpack’s ticket to the College World Series.
It was Torres’ third straight game with a homer and this one came on what had been arguably the most unhittable pitch in college baseball this season.
“I was pretty much sitting on cutters all day,” Torres said. “It’s funny, I just got off the phone with my dad and he was talking about, ‘Yeah, he kept throwing you the same pitch, same pitch. You were on it.’ I was just sitting on cutter, looking for something up and I got it and put a good swing on it.”
The game was tied 2-2 entering the ninth inning and Kopps had already thrown 114 pitches, after throwing 21 the day before, but there wasn’t much debate about whether the Razorbacks should pull their ace reliever making his first start of the season.
Kopps said after the game that the conversation between innings was short and to the point, with the coaches asking if he was still good to go and him responding, ‘I’m good.’
“He was still pitching really well (and) we just tied the game up,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “That was going to be his last inning no matter what. There’s not much difference between 114 and 125 pitches. It’s all the same.”
Considering how efficient Kopps had been the previous five innings, it was no surprise to anyone else in Baum-Walker Stadium when he jogged back out to the mound to start the ninth - even though Patrick Wicklander had been warming up in the bullpen and was ready to go.
"I didn't expect anything different,” North Carolina State head coach Elliott Avent said. “I didn't even look to be honest with you."
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