What Arkansas thinks of South Carolina baseball before their Super Regional clash

Experience, aggressiveness and good pitching.

Those are the main attributes Arkansas baseball associates with South Carolina ahead of the two teams' NCAA Tournament Super Regional clash this weekend.

The Razorbacks are the favorite to win the best-of-three series and advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., but coach Dave Van Horn said he is not expecting anything less than an intense series with two veteran teams.

"They've done well down the stretch, and they were one of the hottest teams in the league the last month of the season and made a big run. You look at some of their losses, it's like a lot of teams. You go through a period where you lose some tight games and then you get beat by some people you're not supposed to get beat by, and you're frustrated," Van Horn said after practice Friday.

"(USC coach Mark Kingston) has got an older group. I think his lineup consists of five seniors and a junior shortstop that was drafted, so they got older kids that knew how to handle it."

Arkansas knows about the value of veteran experience because it has lots itself — 14 players on the Razorbacks' roster are upperclassmen. That's given the team insight into what older players, even those who were overlooked by pro baseball, can offer.

"It's really important (to have veteran leadership)," Arkansas redshirt senior infielder Carson Shaddy said. "You don't see many freshman- or sophomore-led clubs that make it this far. It helps a lot for the young guys to have somebody to look to in tough times."

AGGRESSIVE

The first two pitchers in Arkansas' rotation, juniors Blaine Knight and Kacey Murphy, both said they expect Carolina's hitters to swing freely and go after them aggressively in the series.

"I like to attack inside a lot and they kinda stay on the plate, so it's kinda a head-to-head matchup," Murphy said. "They're really aggressive and they swing at first pitches when they face me, and that's the kind of thing I like. They're a strong and experienced lineup."

"Attack early, attack often," Knight said of how he thinks USC will approach him. "So I'm going to have to do what I can to keep them off balance and just try to keep the ground balls up."

That aggressiveness, Shaddy said, comes from the team's experience, and the veteran players seeing the ball well.

"Just watching them play, they got a fire under them," Shaddy said. "Their older guys have stepped up ... and they're swinging it really well."

PITCHING

Van Horn also praised South Carolina's pitching staff, an area of the team that has been inconsistent but occasionally brilliant throughout the season, led by junior ace Adam Hill, who will take the mound for Game 1.

"They got a great pitching staff. You could take three of those guys and flip them around and ... it's all about the same," Van Horn said. "They all throw hard, they all can pitch, and batting average against them is way down and they're doing really well. I didn't know who they were throwing until this morning, but I kind of suspected that's who they were going to throw."

Shaddy said he expects Hill to set the tone for USC's hurlers, no matter who follows him.

"Their pitching staff is really good. They got guys who can run it up to 95. It seems they all hit their spots really well. Adam Hill is a great competitor. I've met him a couple times off the field, and he seems like a really good guy, and I respect him a lot. All those guys, they follow suit," Shaddy said.

SERIES DETAILS

Saturday: 6:30 p.m., ESPN2

Sunday: 3 p.m., ESPN

Monday: 7 p.m., ESPN

This story was originally published June 8, 2018 at 8:22 PM with the headline "What Arkansas thinks of South Carolina baseball before their Super Regional clash."