Noah Hall focused, vying for more in return to South Carolina

Noah Hall’s message to those who sleep on him and South Carolina is simple yet effective: “Don’t.”

“If you sleep on us, we’re not going to win, we’re going to dominate,” Hall said. “If you don’t come out there and put your best foot forward and know that we’re coming to kill you and know that we’re coming to dominate you, we’re going to win.”

This mentality is nothing new for Hall. When his ERA slowly reached 13.50 last year, many believed he wasn’t fit to be a starter. But he slowly turned into one of the better pitchers in the SEC down the stretch.

In the final two months of the season, Hall pitched at least seven innings in five of his last eight outings. He finished with a 4.34 ERA to go along with 78 strikeouts to 31 walks. He was the SEC Co-Pitcher of the Week twice in the final month of the regular season.

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After turning his season around, the Milwaukee Brewers selected Hall in the 20th round of the 2022 MLB Draft. While he was happy to be drafted, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to leave for the pros yet.

“You got what you wanted at your fingertips, but I just felt like it wasn’t my plan. I feel like God does truly have a plan for me. And during that process, I was really looking towards him,” Hall said. “I just felt like I had another year. He wanted me to be (at South Carolina) another year. I felt like everything was set up throughout my life to be here right now for this moment and be able to really go to Omaha.”

With Hall back for his second year with the Gamecocks, he’ll have a full season to prove he can be a formidable starter in the rotation.

“This year, I would say I’m much more confident,” he said. “I’m much more confident in the work I put in, the preparation. I’m much more confident about the guys we’ve got around us. I know they’re going to keep me accountable.”

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Now with a more definitive role, Hall’s offseason routine has become “super more specific,” focusing on mobility and mechanics with pitching coach Justin Parker.

“Just trying to have a tendency to just lean forward over my chest, and I’m trying to use my core to stay tall. That’s a big thing,” he said. “Just trying to maintain my core, try to maintain sideways as long as possible and not trying to open early. And the core thing I think is the key.”

“Over the summer, we did a lot of core exercises. And it was just repetitive. Just repeating what I do on the mound without the ball. It was a lot of stuff that me and coach Parker talked about that we needed to fix to be at my best.”

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Will Sanders and Hall project to be the first two starters in the rotation. Hall came to South Carolina as a reliever but stepped into the Friday role when injuries riddled the pitching staff last year.

“I want to be number one but at the end of the day if I’m number two, I know Will Sanders is going to go out there and be the best number one in the country, and I’ll be the best number two in the country,” Hall said.

Regardless of how the rotation chisels out, Hall knows there won’t be any bad blood between him and Sanders.

“I feel like we’ve made that relationship where we’re not trying to compete with each other. We’re trying to compete with other teams and beat everybody else no matter if I’m pitching on Friday or Sunday,” Hall said. “It don’t matter.”

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