PLENTY OF TALENT
on the field at Fayetteville Regional.
FAYETTEVILLE — Three first-team AllAmericans, as selected by Collegiate Baseball, will play in the NCAA Fayetteville Regional this weekend at Baum Stadium.
Southern Miss pitcher Nick Sandlin, third baseman Luke Reynolds and Dallas Baptist outfielder Devlin Granberg were all among the
17 first-team selections.
Arkansas pitcher Blaine
Knight and
Dallas Baptist pitcher
Trevor Conn were thirdteam picks.
“I’m extremely blessed to have found this place,” said Granberg, who is hitting
.426 with 100 hits and a
.531 on-base percentage.
“It’s a wonderful place to play with some great coaches and great guys and it has been a great couple of years for me.”
Granberg was the Missouri Valley Conference player of the year.
Sandlin will take a 9-0 record and the nation’s top earned run average of 1.13 into tonight’s start against Dallas Baptist.
“It’s just been a complete team effort,” Sandlin said. “I had a great offense behind me, so even when the other team scored some runs I could count on them to put up more.”
Reynolds was named the Conference USA player of the year after hitting .400 with 15 home runs and 60 RBI.
“That’s a huge honor with some great talent, especially with my teammate,” Reynolds said. “That’s really cool to share that with him.”
Morris missing
Dallas Baptist is without a key member at the regional, its bus driver with a last name familiar to Razorback fans.
J.B. Morris has served as the Patriots’ long-distance bus driver for many years, but he was unable to make the trip to Fayetteville due to a prior commitment. He’s the father of Arkansas football Coach Chad Morris.
“J.B. is a great friend of ours,” Dallas Baptist Coach Dan Heefner said. “We’ve had him for a long, long time, so we’ve always talked about Chad, who we’re really excited for. J.B. is the best. He’s a really good guy.”
J.B. Morris is a retired fireman who began driving the bus as a hobby, said Wes Johnson, Arkansas’ pitching coach who served in the same capacity at DBU from 2012-15.
“He’s very sports knowledgeable,” Johnson said. “Dan Heefner is not much into football, and I am, so J.B. and I would talk football on those bus trips all the time. He’s a very solid human being; just good people, salt of the earth.”
Hometown flavor
Southern Miss junior pitcher Walker Powell played all over for Fayetteville Coach Vance Arnold before heading to Hattiesburg, Miss.
Dallas Baptist sophomore outfielder Luke Bandy played at Shiloh Christian and
Providence Academy and was rated the
No. 6 draft prospect in Arkansas by Baseball
America
“It’s going to be a cool experience for sure,” Powell said. “I grew up coming to these games a lot as a kid so I know the atmosphere is going to be big.”
Powell, the son of Stacey and Matt Powell, said he’s tried to secure at least 15 tickets for friends and family and that the list seems to grow each time he checks his phone.
Bandy, the son of Jan and Ray Bandy, was born in Dallas and moved to Oklahoma before his doctor father moved to Bentonville.
“It’s crazy to think that I’d be back home to play a regional,” Bandy said. “Such a huge stage. But I’ve got a lot of buddies in Arkansas, so
I’m looking forward to seeing them this weekend.”
Dallas
Baptist Coach
Dan Heefner called Bandy a dynamic player.
“He’s probably the fastest player we’ve ever had,” Heefner said. “He’s really explosive, and yeah, he’s super excited to be back in Arkansas to play in front of the home crowd.”
Nasty Nick
No NCAA pitcher has the stats sported by sidewinding Southern Miss junior Nick Sandlin (9-0), whose 1.13 ERA and 0.69 WHIP are the best in the nation. The righthander has 134 strikeouts and 15 walks in 951/3 innings.
“His numbers are ridiculous,” Dallas Baptist Coach Dan Heefner said. “When you face a guy like that who has had that success, you really look forward to seeing what he’s like and I know our guys are excited for it. It’s the postseason, so anything can happen now.”
Sandlin was an ace reliever as a freshman and a standout long reliever last year before transitioning to being a starter.
“We’re going to be ready for him,” Dallas Baptist outfielder Devlin Granberg said. “”We’re going to stick to our approach.”
Southern Miss Coach Scott Perry said Sandlin’s best asset is his competitive nature.
“I think there’s two things that sum him up: One, very confident; and two, he really competes,” Perry said.
“We just look at it and we see a guy with that velo[city], and we love velo,” Dallas Baptist outfielder Luke Bandy said. “We crush velo. So to see a guy like that, we look forward to it.”
Top pick
Dallas Baptist outfielder Jameson Hannah is being projected as a second-round pick for next week’s
Major League Baseball
Draft, which starts Monday.
“Being in this regional,
I’m trying not to think about that
too much, but it is always dwelling in the back of your head,” Hannah said. “But I’m just trying to focus on today and let that fall into its place.”
Jorn is back
Long-time Arkansas pitching coach Dave Jorn will be scouting the NCAA regional this weekend.
Jorn, now a scout with the Tampa
Bay Rays, spent 20 years as pitching coach in two stints with the Hogs, ending in
2016.
League bests
All three of Arkansas’ opponents at the Fayetteville Regional sport the pitcher and player of the year in their respective conferences.
No. 2 seed Southern Miss’ Nick Sandlin was pitcher of the year in Conference USA and third baseman Luke Reynolds was the league’s player of the year.
No. 3 seed Dallas Baptist’s Trevor Conn (8-1, 2.92 ERA) was pitcher of the year and outfielder Devlin Granberg (.426, 11 HR, 65 RBI) was player of the year in the Missouri Valley Conference.
No. 4 seed Oral Roberts’ Miguel Ausua (8-1, 3.27 ERA) was pitcher of the year and outfielder Noah Cummings (.323, 9 HR, 55 RBI) was player of the year in the Summit League.
Hit, field & pitch
Arkansas ranks No. 19 in batting average (.299), No. 29 in earned run average (3.53) and No. 115 in fielding percentage (.971) in the NCAA.
Southern Miss is 11th in batting average (.304), No. 31 in earned run average (3.55) and No. 105 in fielding percentage (.972).
Dallas Baptist ranks No. 26 in batting average (.296), No. 107 in earned run average (4.38) and No. 33 in fielding percentage (.977).
Oral Roberts is No. 57 in batting average (.285), No.
63 in earned run average (3.89) and No. 166 in fielding percentage (.968).
Neosho native
Southern Miss Coach Scott Berry grew up in Neosho, Mo., just a few miles over the state line from Bella Vista and about 65 miles north of Fayetteville.
“I’m very familiar with Hog country and coming here,” Berry said Thursday on the SiriusXM program
Playbook. “When I was growing up and coming through here it was just a little two-lane Highway 71 with a bunch of stoplights through Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville. It’s fun to come back close to home.”
Berry said he might try to visit an old hangout while he’s in town.
“I asked our bus driver, who is from here, if AQ Chicken House was still around and he said it was. I said, ‘Still good fried chicken?’ He said, ‘Coach, it’s the best there is,’” Berry said. “If I do get time I’ll go over there and visit AQ Chicken.”
Alcohol ban
Alcoholic beverages will not be permitted at Baum Stadium due to an NCAA rule that prohibits alcohol on the grounds of NCAA postseason venues.
Fans who attempt to bring alcohol into the stadium during the regional will be asked to return it to their vehicle or place it in trash cans located at the gates. Alcohol will be permitted inside suite areas of the stadium this weekend.
Around the horn
Arkansas is scheduled to host Oral Roberts for a single mid-week game in April next season.
The regional will feature two Golden Eagles (Southern Miss, Oral Roberts), the Razorbacks and the Patriots (Dallas Baptist).
Oral Roberts has won 19 consecutive Summit League Tournament titles.
Southern Miss and Oral Roberts have never met in baseball.