CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The state of North Carolina has been good to Will McEntire.
The right hander’s 5 2/3-inning scoreless start Sunday at the NCAA Chapel Hill Super Regional was arguably his best college outing, especially given the circumstance. It helped Arkansas to a 4-3 victory over North Carolina, which clinched the Razorbacks’ latest trip to the College World Series.
But it was not McEntire’s first start in the Tar Heel State. As a pitcher for the Bryant Black Sox, McEntire threw a seven-inning, three-hit shutout over a previously undefeated team from nearby at the 2017 American Legion World Series in Shelby, N.C.
Madison McEntire, Will’s father, estimates around 150 to 200 people of around 8,000 at Keeter Stadium were from Bryant. The overwhelming majority were cheering for the Randolph County, N.C., team from up the road.
Will McEntire, who was 16 and playing up in age at the time, shut down a lineup that included some 19-year-old college freshmen, according to the Bryant Daily. The game was televised by ESPNU and sent Bryant to the national semifinals.
“That kid is going to be the real deal, 16-year-old kid and he’s got a really bright future,” Bryant coach Darren Hurt said after the game, according to a recap posted to the American Legion website.
It was an outing his father was reminded of when he learned of the Game 2 pitching plans a few hours before Sunday's game.
“I sent Darren a text before the game and said, ‘Hey, guess who’s starting,’” Madison McEntire said. “He texted back and said, ‘Well, last time he faced a North Carolina team in North Carolina, it worked out pretty good.’ I had completely forgotten about that until he said that. That’s just too crazy.”
Will McEntire has long had a knack for pitching well in big games, and his legion teammates referred to him as "Big Game Mac." During the run to Shelby, he was called up from Bryant’s junior American Legion team and pitched the state championship game against a Texarkana team that featured slugger Matt Goodheart, who was later his teammate at Arkansas.
Goodheart had three hits against him on the day their American Legion teams played, but McEntire pitched six innings and left with a 7-2 lead. McEntire also pitched a nine-inning complete game the next week that helped Bryant get out of the losers bracket during a regional game against a team from Tennessee.
“He threw all nine innings, no walks and I think he threw like 103 pitches,” Madison McEntire said. “We ended up winning the next two games and advanced to Shelby for the World Series.”
There were several similarities between McEntire’s start in Shelby and his one in Chapel Hill — a pivotal game in the season, a partisan crowd rooting against him and an opponent that didn’t come close to scoring while he was on the mound.
The Tar Heels didn’t put a runner in scoring position against McEntire until he walked Vance Honeycutt with a runner on first base in the sixth inning. McEntire induced a fly out in the next at-bat before he was taken out of the game and replaced with reliever Kole Ramage.
McEntire allowed 3 hits and 2 walks against North Carolina, and struck out 4 during his 73-pitch outing. He threw 47 pitches for strikes.
“It kind of felt like the same moment (as Shelby), but back then it kind of caught me by surprise. I’m not really sure I realized he could do that in that situation,” Madison McEntire said. “Now every time I think the situation might be too big for him, I think back to that, to those three (American Legion) starts where in those three weeks he won three very important games to get them to the final four.”
McEntire's start Sunday was made more impressive by the fact he pitched on both sides of a 1-hour, 46-minute weather delay between the second and third innings. He said he had experience pitching around a weather delay from his high school days.
“I just knew exactly how to keep myself ready in that situation,” he said.
Arkansas coaches weren’t sure whether they would start McEntire until the morning of Game 2. They wrestled with whether it would be best to start a right hander for the second consecutive day against a UNC lineup that struggled with Connor Noland in Game 1, or a left hander, likely Zack Morris.
McEntire got a text message Sunday morning after breakfast that informed he would be the starter.
“I just knew I needed to do the job and get my team to Omaha,” said McEntire, who called it “probably the best day of my life.”
It was a moment no one would have envisioned two months earlier when McEntire was not on the travel roster. After redshirting the 2021 season, he didn’t pitch this year until the back end of an April 12 doubleheader against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
“We actually sat down in my office two days before Pine Bluff, and he was like, ‘I don’t feel like I’ve really gotten much of a shot,’” Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in May. “And you know, he was right. Sometimes the players are right. He hadn’t really gotten much of a shot.”
McEntire’s start against UAPB earned him another start the following Tuesday and soon he was the team’s starter for midweek nonconference games. When he got his first chance to pitch in an SEC game at Auburn, he threw three consecutive scoreless innings before the Tigers scored a run against him in the ninth inning of the decisive game in the series.
“It's been a crazy year,” Will McEntire said Sunday. “It's hard to describe it. It's kind of like the last two weekends, just insane, up and down.”
Early in the season, McEntire's father encouraged him to work hard and told him, “You’ll get a chance sometime. It might be one or two chances, so just be ready.”
Now the Razorbacks head to the College World Series with McEntire an apparent No. 2 starter as Hagen Smith seemingly transitions into a closer role. Of McEntire's 41 2/3 innings pitched this season, 25 innings have come since May 8 against SEC teams or Oklahoma State and North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament.
Like that run to Shelby five years ago, it is a series of events that has taken many by surprise.
“I feel like it’s kind of been like a dream,” Madison McEntire said. “I can’t quite grasp, honestly, what’s happening. I think it’s going to be a while, later this summer, when I sit back and think about what happened and I’ll be like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that.’”