Arkansas pitcher Gage Wood threw the third no-hitter in College World Series history in Monday’s 3-0 elimination game victory over Murray State. Wood delivered the best outing of his Razorbacks career and broke the nine-inning CWS record with 19 strikeouts, outdoing the mark LSU’s Ty Floyd posted in Game 1 of the 2023 CWS finals. The 19 punchouts also broke the Arkansas program record.
Wood’s no-no was the first since Oklahoma State’s Jim Wixson stymied North Carolina in the 1960 tournament. Texas’ Jim Ehrler is the only other pitcher to leave an opponent hitless as he became the first to do so in 1950 against Tufts.
Wood, the No. 20 MLB Draft prospect per CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson, carried a perfect game into the eighth inning. He would have been the first pitcher in CWS history to face the minimum had he kept the perfecto alive, but he hit the first batter he faced in the eighth to put a Murray State baserunner aboard for the first and only time.
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R.J. Anderson
“I shouldn’t have hit the guy,” Wood said on the ESPN broadcast. “That’s it. That’s all I got to say.”
The outing was a dominant CWS debut for Wood, who joined the Arkansas program in 2023 and developed into a starter ahead of his junior season. The former reliever started all 10 of his appearances this year and carried a 5.02 ERA into the elimination battle with the Racers. A shoulder impingement kept Wood off the mound for all of March and half of April, and he faced workload limitations following his return.
The 119 pitches Wood threw Monday were by far a career high and significantly outdid the 89 he shoved in the regional round against Creighton, which at the time were his most of the season. His complete game also shattered his previous season high of six innings, which also came against the Bluejays in the Fayetteville Regional.
Wood’s arsenal features a devastating four-seam fastball, and he used it masterfully against the Racers. Murray State was one of the hottest teams in the field offensively and used its bats to fuel a Cinderella run to Omaha, but the no-hitter brought the Racers’ miraculous postseason to an end.
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