Dave Van Horn says Hunter Hollan was ‘amazing’ against South Carolina

Arkansas secured a win Sunday over South Carolina that gave the Razorbacks a series win in their final home series of the regular season, beating the Gamecocks 5-1. The Razorbacks had a solid performance across the board, but after the game, it was hard for head coach Dave Van Horn to ignore the excellent performance of his starting pitcher Hunter Hollan.

“Really the story of the day obviously was Hunter Hollan, he was amazing,” Van Horn said. “He gave up a home run I think to the eight-hole hitter and was lights out after that honestly.”

Hollan pitched all nine innings for Arkansas and was stellar, giving up just five hits in the entire game. He gave up just one run on the day, a lead-off solo homer at the top of the third inning by second baseman Will Tippett, but outside of that had a consistent day at the mound.

“I knew he probably went five innings there in the middle towards the end of the game where he didn’t work out of the stretch. They finally got a hit on him there in the ninth and we thought about taking him out. Going into the eighth we thought this would be his last inning, well then he goes out and works a great inning, quick. He’s in the 90s, there was no way we could take him out,” Van Horn explained.

Hollan ended the day with a career-high 10 strikeouts to go with his career-high nine innings pitched. He threw a whopping 113 pitches, which sounds like a ton and a trip straight to the trainer for an ice pack to the shoulder. But Van Horn is confident in the state of his Sunday ace.

“The number of pitches, they do matter, but not as much as how stressful were they, how many tough innings did he have to fight out of. And he really only had one I feel like, so great job by him on Mother’s Day to get us a big series win against a really good team and now it’s off to Vandy,” Van Horn said.

Hollan’s career day pushed Arkansas’ record to 38-13 overall and 19-8 in the SEC this season, as they take on Vanderbilt on the road in their final regular season series starting on Thursday, May 8 before the SEC Tournament kicks off.

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