Welcome to State of the Ace, a Saturday morning look at the best performances by Friday starters throughout the country.

The Opening Weekend of SEC play was marked by a variety of high-end ranked matchups, including No. 9 Vanderbilt hosting No. 18 Auburn. The visiting Tigers entered the weekend with seven of their starting nine boasting three-plus home runs and had gone deep in each of their first 16 games.

That run of offensive production quickly screeched to a halt against the Commodores and ace Carter Holton. The junior southpaw gave up a run in the first inning — on a double, groundout, and wild pitch — but quickly settled in.

Holton went seven innings of an eight-inning, 11-1 run-rule victory and allowed just four hits and one walk while striking out nine. After allowing back-to-back singles in the third inning with one out, he responded by setting down the next 13 batters he faced.

It was Holton’s best start of the year by Game Score (73) and followed up an 11-strikeout, five-inning outing against Illinois State. He’s got a 3.96 ERA and 14 K/9 across 25 innings to start the season.

Let’s look at some of the other top pitching performances from Friday:

Coltin Atkinson (Sam Houston) vs. New Mexico State — 8 IP, 2 H, 3 BB, 9 K

That’s three straight quality starts for Atkinson, with the latest effort his best of the year. The CUSA opener against the Aggies went smoothly as he allowed just two hits and walked three while striking out nine. Atkinson has a 1.76 ERA over 30.2 IP.

Hagen Smith (Arkansas) vs. Missouri — 6 IP, 2 H, BB, 10 K

Smith just continues to make it look easy out there. Another double-digit strikeout performance, this time scattering two hits and a walk over six scoreless against Missouri. He’s up to a gaudy 50 strikeouts in 23 innings with a 1.57 ERA and just eight walks allowed.

Hagen's third K 🥏 pic.twitter.com/u3Y1VJLiww

— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) March 15, 2024

Nick Pinto (UC Irvine) vs. UC Davis — 8 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 7 K

Pinto took his first loss of the season last week against Fresno State — he gave up three runs over five innings in what became a 13-1 loss — and responded well. He went eight innings against the Aggies, dueling with Bryan Green (7 IP, 0 R) before UC Irvine ultimately walked it off. Pinto fanned seven and allowed five baserunners.

Jake Brink (Charleston) vs. Wofford — 8 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 4 K

Like Pinto above, Brink bounced back from a rough start by his standards. The sophomore righthander had given up five runs to Penn last week but went eight shutout against Wofford. Brink worked around three hits and two walks while striking out four. He has a 2.03 ERA and 1.16 WHIP through 31 innings.

Kyle Robinson (Texas Tech) vs. Baylor — 7 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 8 K

We continue our “bounce-back” efforts with perhaps the biggest one yet: Robinson gave up 11 hits and 11 runs to Texas last weekend in three-plus innings. Against Baylor? He worked seven shutout innings, allowing three hits and walking two while striking out eight.