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Those methods bore fruit in 2024, when the Wildcats had one of the most improved pitching staffs in the country. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ won the Pac-12 regular-season and tournament championships — but lost in the regional round of the NCAA Tournament for the third year in a row.

Far from satisfied, the coaches huddled in the offseason.

“How can we take this to the next level?� Vance wondered.

The answer can be found in the back of the Terry Francona Hitting Center at Hi Corbett Field. That space is now a pitching lab — the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Baseball Pitching Wing, named after former UA pitching coach Jim Wing.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is among the latest college programs to build a pitching lab, a concept that took off in 2023, when Wake Forest went 54-12 and made the College World Series for the first time in almost 70 years. The Demon Deacons led the nation in ERA by nearly a run and had five pitchers selected in the first six rounds of the ’23 MLB Draft. was a frequent talking point during ESPN’s telecasts of the CWS.

The UA program needed financial assistance to get its lab up and running. It needed computers, flat screens, cameras and subscriptions to services such as (a touchless motion-capture technology) and (a “smart mound� that measures force into the ground in real time).

Help came from Bob Charles, a . Hale received a call from Charles during the ’23 CWS.

“I'm tired of hearing about Wake Forest,� Charles said, per Hale’s recollection. “What can I do to help?�

“Right then and there,� said Hale, “I was like, ‘We're going to be the West Coast version of Wake Forest.’�

The idea to name the lab after Wing sprung from conversations with Jerry Kindall’s other top aide, Jerry Stitt. Stitt wanted to honor Wing’s contributions to the program in some way; he had served as Kindall’s pitching coach from 1973-92, helping the Wildcats win three national championships.

It was a perfect match. As Stitt said of his longtime friend, who died in November at the age of 88, “He was analytics before there were analytics.�

Said Hale: “The one thing about Coach Wing that was beautiful was, even to the day he died, he always wanted to know about these new things. He was always interested in the pitching stuff and how you could teach better. So I said, ‘Why not? Let's name it the Pitching Wing.’�

The lab is an homage to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ baseball’s rich past. It’s boosting the Wildcats in the present. And it should buoy the program in the future.

The ‘Force’ is with them

The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Baseball Pitching Wing features 11 cameras, three large flat screens and two computer terminals. The crown jewel is the NewtForce mound, which on first glance looks like a run-of-the-mill indoor pitching mound. It’s a sloped, 5-by-10 rectangular slab topped by brown artificial turf and a pitching rubber.

Sensors inside the mound provide multidimensional feedback on how pitchers are using the lower half of their bodies. In the simplest terms, according to Zach Day, and a co-founder of NewtForce, “We help them improve the efficiency of how they use their legs.�

Day previously worked for Trackman, which has become a ubiquitous tool in baseball to measure batted-ball metrics and help pitchers refine and shape their offerings. NewtForce — which is used by 10 MLB teams and 16 college programs, including three in the Big 12 — shifts the focus to lower-body mechanics.

There are two overarching, interlocking goals, said Vance, who earned his undergrad degree at UConn in Kinesiology, Coaching & Sport Administration. One is “optimizing how they move,� he said. The other is getting to the point where “guys will start throwing harder and feeling better at the same time.�

“That's how you know it's working,� Vance said. “The performance is better, the output is better and they feel better ... because their sequence of how they're moving is just more efficient.

“Efficiency is being able to produce the highest output with the lowest effort. That's what these tools help us get to.�

The NewtForce mound helps reveal what each pitcher’s “superpower� is, Vance said. For example, the coaches learned that sophomore right-hander Owen Kramkowski (Walden Grove High School) barely produces any force with his back leg. Meanwhile, the force produced by his front leg is “insane,� Vance said. “And that’s why he throws so hard.�

The technology has helped Vance evolve as a coach, reaffirming what he’s come to realize: Every pitcher’s body is different. Therefore, they require individualized programs.

“Early on in my career, I messed up a lot of guys,� Vance said. “You fall into these traps.�

The NewtForce mound helped junior right-hander Casey Hintz figure out that he was striding too far. When he shortened his stride slightly, his velocity ticked up.

“The longer I got in my moves, the less efficient I was getting, and I wasn't able to rotate as well,� Hintz said. “I can feel the difference in each throw that I make.

“(It’s) just probably one or two miles an hour, which isn’t a huge difference. But it makes a difference in my pitch shapes; my sinker doesn't sink as much when I get longer.

“Even though my stride is (only) an inch farther, it throws off the timing of everything else, and that can affect velo and shape.�

Word of mouth

How much the pitching lab will help the Wildcats this season — which begins Friday against Ole Miss in the in Arlington, Texas — remains to be seen. It will be difficult to top last year’s staff, which led the nation in strikeout-to-walk ratio and BB/9 rate in its first season under Vance.

While maximizing the current pitchers’ efficiency is the lab’s primary purpose, it isn’t the only one. Hale also envisioned it as a recruiting tool — a way for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to “maybe beat some people that were beating us on pitchers.â€�

“He knew that it was an advantage for the future, long-term success of the program,� Vance said.

In pursuit of pitching, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ can point to the success of last year’s starting rotation under Vance. Clark Candiotti, Jackson Kent and Cam Walty all earned All-Pac-12 recognition, and all three were drafted.

Any recruit who enters the pitching lab will be reminded of that fact. Images of Candiotti, Kent and Walty — alongside UA alums-turned-MLB standouts Kevin Ginkel and Mark Melancon — are part of the graphics recently put up on the walls inside the Terry Francona Hitting Center. Other wall art includes a tribute to Wing and a montage depicting Francona as a player and manager.

Did the lab help ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ get freshmen Mason Russell and Smith Bailey to campus when either in-state prospect easily could have turned pro? It surely didn’t hurt.

It also doesn’t hurt to have MLB pitchers visit your facility. American League Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers . The Cleveland Guardians’ Triston McKenzie recently worked out in the lab. Vance said agencies will lease the space to get evaluations for their clients.

Word of mouth travels as fast as Skubal’s heater.

“The flashy, cool tech, that's not the most important thing to me. It's how we apply it and how we can show recruits exactly how guys got better,� Vance said.

“The recruiting is not just the flashy bells and whistles. It's ‘Hey, let's talk about exactly how we can use this to make you the best version of yourself.’ That's the coolest part of it. We can get to the answers faster than most places.�