The University of Mississippi Athletics
Studying Abroad: Doug Nikhazy's Summer with Team USA
10/9/2019 | Baseball
Nikhazy Earned Team USA Nod After Freshman All-American Campaign
This story originally appeared in the October 5, 2019 issue of Rebel: The Official Magazine of Ole Miss Football Gameday.
Doug Nikhazy had a modest goal in the fall of his first year on the Ole Miss campus. More than anything, the freshman out of Windermere, Florida, just didn't want to be sitting in his dorm room while his Rebels traversed the gauntlet of league play.
He set his sights on making the travel roster and all but secured his spot with a stellar first fall ball season. He worked his way up to a long-form reliever out of the bullpen, then to a midweek starting position, before he finally settled in as the Rebels' Saturday starter. By mid-March, Nikhazy was a freshman phenom, and the country took notice.
He finished out his first full season with a 9-3 record, a team-low 3.31 ERA, and a few Freshman All-American nods under his belt. A year that began with hopes of just making the roster would finish out with Nikhazy taking the SEC by storm, and earning the distinction of being selected as a member of the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team.
"I remember in the fall, getting on campus and thinking to myself, 'I just want to make sure I get a couple innings and the coaches still know who I am,'" Nikhazy said. "I kind of picked up some steam towards the end of the fall, and then when I got my first start, it just flew by from there. After I started against ECU, everything from then on was a whirlwind."
Nikhazy survived initial roster cuts and became one of just 25 college baseball players from around the country to play for Team USA, and in doing so, became the third Rebel in as many years to represent America on the highest stage. He had donned the red and blue uniform once before, as a member of the 15-and-under USA National Team, but never dreamed of again taking the highest stage in baseball.
"You know it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience; you never want to take anything for granted," Nikhazy said. "So when I played for Team USA when I was 15, I just wanted to absorb everything, because you know you're never going to get another opportunity like that again. This might be the peak of my career, I mean who knows? And then when I got the chance again, it was surreal. I said, 'Wow, I'm actually back in this jersey again.' I never thought I'd be in this situation again."
For all his accolades freshman year, everything from two-time SEC Freshman of the Week to Freshman All-SEC, for him, receiving the nod from the Collegiate National Team takes the cake.
"We had just gotten home from losing the SEC Championship, and so I was pretty down, but when I heard the news, it just changed my whole mood," Nikhazy said. "I said, 'Oh my God, this is crazy.'"
Nikhazy and the rest of college baseball's top athletes traveled all over the globe this summer, competing against Cuba, Chinese Taipei, and Japan, and the Rebel ace was able to experience firsthand just how different baseball – and life, for that matter – was a world away.
"I really enjoyed it," Nikhazy said. "It was a complete culture shock. It's been a completely different experience every step of the way - leaving central Florida and coming here, and then going to a completely different country. It's a completely different way of baseball and a completely different way of life."
Nikhazy was able to compete against some of the best baseball players the world outside of America has to offer, and yet, he didn't find the competition all that improved from the everyday SEC lineup. This is, after all, the same pitcher who went 5-2 in league play against some of college baseball's toughest bats.
"Obviously the SEC is the best conference in college baseball, but I also think it's the toughest competition in all of baseball anywhere in the world, at least at the amateur level," Nikhazy said.
The SEC was well represented on Team USA, with nine of the 26 team members hailing from the ranks of baseball's top conference. Because of that, Nikhazy was able share the spotlight with some of his fellow league rivals, such as Arkansas' Heston Kjerstad and Mississippi State's Tanner Allen, just to name a few.
"(Tanner) would joke with me about the season, and I would just tell him, 'We'll get you back next year,'" Nikhazy said. "Playing with guys you played against all year is kind of weird, because you want to think of them as your enemies and then you go, 'Dang it, they're actually nice guys.' So I can't hate them like I wish I could when I'm pitching against them."
Going through his first couple appearances from 2019, it's not difficult to see how Nikhazy made the leap from quiet freshman to a member of Team USA. In his first career SEC start, he took a no-hitter against Missouri into the seventh inning. He followed it up with a 10-strikeout game versus Texas A&M in April, before coming right back the next week and holding LSU to just one run en route to the Rebels' first series win in Baton Rouge in over three decades. To cap it all off, he closed out his freshman year with a victory in the hostile Baum-Walker Stadium on the campus of Arkansas in Game 2 of the NCAA Fayetteville Super Regional.
It's safe to say that the returning sophomore will have quite the reputation to live up to heading into year two.
"It's a completely different dynamic," Nikhazy said. "Last year, everybody was impressed to see me, and now people expect things of me. Now that I've had the chance to think on that, I've realized that it's not really pressure, it's just people recognizing a really good baseball player. You just have to live up to those expectations and not think any more or less of it."
Get him to February, however, and he's ready to assume his role once again.
"Once I hit that field, there's no pressure," he said. "Get me to game one, and I'm ready to go."
Doug Day returns the weekend of February 14, when the Rebels welcome Louisville to campus for the first series of the 2020 season.
Doug Nikhazy had a modest goal in the fall of his first year on the Ole Miss campus. More than anything, the freshman out of Windermere, Florida, just didn't want to be sitting in his dorm room while his Rebels traversed the gauntlet of league play.
He set his sights on making the travel roster and all but secured his spot with a stellar first fall ball season. He worked his way up to a long-form reliever out of the bullpen, then to a midweek starting position, before he finally settled in as the Rebels' Saturday starter. By mid-March, Nikhazy was a freshman phenom, and the country took notice.
He finished out his first full season with a 9-3 record, a team-low 3.31 ERA, and a few Freshman All-American nods under his belt. A year that began with hopes of just making the roster would finish out with Nikhazy taking the SEC by storm, and earning the distinction of being selected as a member of the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team.
"I remember in the fall, getting on campus and thinking to myself, 'I just want to make sure I get a couple innings and the coaches still know who I am,'" Nikhazy said. "I kind of picked up some steam towards the end of the fall, and then when I got my first start, it just flew by from there. After I started against ECU, everything from then on was a whirlwind."
Nikhazy survived initial roster cuts and became one of just 25 college baseball players from around the country to play for Team USA, and in doing so, became the third Rebel in as many years to represent America on the highest stage. He had donned the red and blue uniform once before, as a member of the 15-and-under USA National Team, but never dreamed of again taking the highest stage in baseball.
"You know it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience; you never want to take anything for granted," Nikhazy said. "So when I played for Team USA when I was 15, I just wanted to absorb everything, because you know you're never going to get another opportunity like that again. This might be the peak of my career, I mean who knows? And then when I got the chance again, it was surreal. I said, 'Wow, I'm actually back in this jersey again.' I never thought I'd be in this situation again."
For all his accolades freshman year, everything from two-time SEC Freshman of the Week to Freshman All-SEC, for him, receiving the nod from the Collegiate National Team takes the cake.
"We had just gotten home from losing the SEC Championship, and so I was pretty down, but when I heard the news, it just changed my whole mood," Nikhazy said. "I said, 'Oh my God, this is crazy.'"
Nikhazy and the rest of college baseball's top athletes traveled all over the globe this summer, competing against Cuba, Chinese Taipei, and Japan, and the Rebel ace was able to experience firsthand just how different baseball – and life, for that matter – was a world away.
"I really enjoyed it," Nikhazy said. "It was a complete culture shock. It's been a completely different experience every step of the way - leaving central Florida and coming here, and then going to a completely different country. It's a completely different way of baseball and a completely different way of life."
Nikhazy was able to compete against some of the best baseball players the world outside of America has to offer, and yet, he didn't find the competition all that improved from the everyday SEC lineup. This is, after all, the same pitcher who went 5-2 in league play against some of college baseball's toughest bats.
"Obviously the SEC is the best conference in college baseball, but I also think it's the toughest competition in all of baseball anywhere in the world, at least at the amateur level," Nikhazy said.
The SEC was well represented on Team USA, with nine of the 26 team members hailing from the ranks of baseball's top conference. Because of that, Nikhazy was able share the spotlight with some of his fellow league rivals, such as Arkansas' Heston Kjerstad and Mississippi State's Tanner Allen, just to name a few.
"(Tanner) would joke with me about the season, and I would just tell him, 'We'll get you back next year,'" Nikhazy said. "Playing with guys you played against all year is kind of weird, because you want to think of them as your enemies and then you go, 'Dang it, they're actually nice guys.' So I can't hate them like I wish I could when I'm pitching against them."
Going through his first couple appearances from 2019, it's not difficult to see how Nikhazy made the leap from quiet freshman to a member of Team USA. In his first career SEC start, he took a no-hitter against Missouri into the seventh inning. He followed it up with a 10-strikeout game versus Texas A&M in April, before coming right back the next week and holding LSU to just one run en route to the Rebels' first series win in Baton Rouge in over three decades. To cap it all off, he closed out his freshman year with a victory in the hostile Baum-Walker Stadium on the campus of Arkansas in Game 2 of the NCAA Fayetteville Super Regional.
It's safe to say that the returning sophomore will have quite the reputation to live up to heading into year two.
"It's a completely different dynamic," Nikhazy said. "Last year, everybody was impressed to see me, and now people expect things of me. Now that I've had the chance to think on that, I've realized that it's not really pressure, it's just people recognizing a really good baseball player. You just have to live up to those expectations and not think any more or less of it."
Get him to February, however, and he's ready to assume his role once again.
"Once I hit that field, there's no pressure," he said. "Get me to game one, and I'm ready to go."
Doug Day returns the weekend of February 14, when the Rebels welcome Louisville to campus for the first series of the 2020 season.
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