FAYETTEVILLE — Sam Highfill had trouble gripping the baseball with sweat pouring down his forearm onto his pitching hand on a scalding day Saturday.
So the North Carolina State freshman took his time, made liberal use of the rosin bag, stopped throwing breaking pitches and attacked the University of Arkansas with fastballs.
Highfill (8-2) retired 16 consecutive batters after allowing a two-run home run to hot Charlie Welch in the second inning and led the Wolfpack to a 6-5 victory over the No. 1 Razorbacks.
“Today might have been the slowest I’ve ever pitched in my life,” said Highfill, who normally works fast. “I don’t think I threw a curveball after Welch hit that two-run home run in the second inning.
“I don’t think I threw another, basically because I couldn’t grip the baseball. It was pretty much fastball and changeup all day. So I had to slow myself down a lot, go to the resin a lot, but it worked out.”
North Carolina State Coach Elliott Avent said the coaching staff did not have to talk to Highfill about pacing himself in the heat.
“He had to battle a lot of things today, and he figured out how to battle that,” Avent said. “He’s not only a competitive player and a bulldog, he’s smart.
“He likes to pitch fast, but he couldn’t grip the breaking ball early on and he was throwing a lot of fastballs, more than he normally throws. But part of that is the moisture running down his forearm and his hand. He had to go to the resin bag probably 40 times today to get some dryness to be able to throw the ball. He was forced to slow things down, and he understood that.”
Highfill, a 6-3, 211-pounder from Apex, N.C., allowed just 2 hits in 6 1/3 innings while giving up 3 earned runs with 2 walks and 5 strikeouts.
Welch’s home run came with no outs in the second inning after a Brady Slavens walk.
Highfill filled the scorebook with outs from that point right up until one out in the seventh, when Slavens hammered a pitch over the wall in left-center field to make it 6-3.
Welch walked immediately after that, and Highfill’s day was done after 96 pitches.
The Razorbacks’ impatience after jumping ahead on Welch’s third home run in the past three postseason games worked against them.
Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said the Razorbacks helped Highfill by chasing high in the zone.
“He threw a lot of his fastballs away, spotted them pretty good,” Van Horn said. “Then he’d bust you in a little bit. We swung at some high pitches, especially early on. We went out of the zone too much.
“We had a chance to walk a couple of times and swung at balls that were up, fouled them off, swung and missed, popped up. He just got us to swing at it and it cost us.”
Welch said Highfill used another angle to his advantage.
“Honestly, the change of arm slot from going over the top to sidearm, you don’t really see that too often,” Welch said. “I think he was creating some bad swings from a couple guys. He even got me out on it.
“The elevated fastball all day was working for him, but really it wasn’t anything crazy. Nothing we haven’t seen before I don’t think. Maybe just went through a little bit of a cold streak.”
The cold streak kept the Wolfpack alive to play today’s 5 p.m. super regional final.
“I just told Sam I thought it was the best game he’s ever pitched if you consider all of the circumstances of the meaning of the game, the crowd, but mostly the heat,” Avent said.
“I battled out there there,” Highfill said. “Given the circumstances and situation and the team we were playing against, it couldn’t have gone much better I guess.”
Highfill said he got a Snapchat memory on his phone on Saturday from exactly one year ago during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I was at the beach with my brother and his girlfriend,” Highfill said. “If you would have told me that a year from that day I’d be pitching in a super regional, I would have told you that you were crazy.”