
OXFORD — In a game dripping with drama – until, and even after the last out – Ole Miss defeated Florida State 4-3 Saturday night to take a huge step toward the championship of the Oxford regional.
It wasn’t over until it was over and then, well, it wasn’t over. Umpires needed a lengthy review of a bang-bang play at first base for the last out to go into the record book. The game had it all: marvelous defensive plays (mostly by Ole Miss), long home runs (by Florida State) and uncommonly good pitching.
Mostly, it had Ole Miss pitchers Doug Nikhazy and then Taylor Broadway. Nikhazy, the Rebels’ All-American left-hander, was heroic, striking out 16 Seminoles over seven innings before handing over a 4-3 lead to closer Broadway, who retired six straight Seminoles, including the last three on strikeouts.
So Ole Miss pitching combined for 19 strikeouts of the free-swinging, feast-or-famine Seminoles who take all-or-nothing swings in each at bat.
Ole Miss now waits to see who wins Sunday’s 1 p.m. rematch of Florida State and Southern Miss. The Rebels will play the winner at 6 p.m. Should Ole Miss lose that one, a winner-take-all championship game will be played Monday at 6 p.m.
Whatever happens Sunday and Monday, it will be difficult to match Saturday night’s suspense. With a packed house of 10,830 often standing, shouting and clapping in unison, both Nikhazy and then Broadway delivered clutch pitch after clutch pitch under high pressure.
Nikhazy threw 119 pitches, but seemed as strong after seven innings as he had in the first.
“When the game is on the line, he can take it to another gear,” coach Mike Bianco said of Nikhazy. “Some pitchers hit a wall at 90 to 95 pitches, but with the game on the line, Doug can always reach back and get a little extra.”
Someone asked Bianco if it might have been Nikhazy’s best performance as a Rebel. Bianco smiled. “I’m not going to go out on that line because he has pitched a ton of great games,” he said. “But we needed every bit of it tonight.”
Nikhazy, who pitches with his emotions on his sleeve, often was ready to pitch before the batter even stepped into the box. For the most part, he had the Seminoles off kilter. If a batter was looking for a fastball, he got a nasty curve. If the batter looked for curve, he got a 90 mph fastball in on his hands. He was masterful.
Nikhazy made only two mistakes, both in the fifth inning. Logan Lacey deposited the first deep into the left field bleachers for a solo home run. Two batters later, Isaiah Perry ripped a two-run homer over the left centerfield fence.
“It was a kick in the gut,” Bianco said.
But the Rebels responded two innings later, taking advantage of a Florida State throwing error to score two and take the 4-3 lead. You’d never guess who hit the ball that led to the error. Oh, you did: Tim Elko.
Really, when you get right down to it, that was the difference. Florida State pitched well, too. Both teams managed only four hits. But Ole Miss played better defense. Three of the four Rebels runs were the result of three FSU errors and were unearned.
Nikhazy and Broadway had a little help from their friends. Freshman shortstop Jacob Gonzalez, the latest in a long line of amazing Rebel shortstops, made one sensational play in the eighth inning when he charged in to barehand a ball that went off Broadway’s leg, scooped the ball and threw in one motion to nail the diving runner at first. Gonzalez also scored two of the four Rebel runs.
“What an incredible college baseball game,” Bianco said. “It was one of those games where it comes down to a couple of plays and we made a couple more plays than them.”
They did. And the Rebels also had Nikhazy and Broadway, who were a one-two punch FSU could not overcome.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.