Doug Nikhazy Unanimous First Team All-American After ABCA Selection
Nikhazy Becomes Third Unanimous First Team All-American in Ole Miss Baseball History
GREENSBORO, N.C. – (Courtesy Ole Miss Athletics) It’s unanimous: Doug Nikhazy is a First Team All-American. Nikhazy added his fourth First Team All-America honor, earning top billing from ABCA/Rawlings, as announced by the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Having earned First Team honors from all four publications recognized by the NCAA—Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, NCBWA and now ABCA—Nikhazy is officially a unanimous All-American. He joins Drew Pomeranz (2010) and Alex Yarbrough (2012) as the only three Rebels to earn First Team nods from all four publications.
Also named an All-American in 2020 by Collegiate Baseball, Nikhazy is just the fourth player and first pure pitcher to earn two-time All-America status in program history.
The junior out of Windermere, Florida, earned his program-record 12th win of the season in last Saturday’s Super Regional win at No. 5 Arizona. He struck out 10 in the victory, his eighth 10-strikeout performance of the season, to give him 142 on the year. The final outing pushed Nikhazy past Will Kline (134 in 2007) and Drew Pomeranz (139 in 2010) to second on the Rebels’ single-season strikeout chart, behind only Lance Lynn’s 146 strikeout effort in 2007.
The first major highlight of Nikhazy’s junior campaign came in the form of a complete-game, one-hit shutout in front of the largest on-campus crowd in college baseball this season at in-state rival Mississippi State.
The second came in the NCAA Oxford Regional against Florida State, where Nikhazy tied a program record with 16 strikeouts in a 4-3 Rebel victory.
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn’s love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception.
