OXFORD | Doug Nikhazy bounced off the mound as the pitch hit Hayden Dunhurst's mitt. The full-count fastball froze Tyler Martin, and Nikhazy took a few steps toward his dugout, screamed, gave an emphatic double-armed first pump and met his teammates.
If it was his last pitch at Swayze Field, it was a fitting Oxford end to the left-hander who just wills the Rebels to wins when it’s Doug Day. Ole Miss is 3-0 in the NCAA Tournament in games Nikhazy starts during his career.
Ole Miss beat Florida State, 4-3, on Saturday, scraping together just enough runs and relying on Nikhazy and Taylor Broadway to again take care of the rest.
Nikhazy struck out 16 in seven innings, tying the school record last matched by Drew Pomeranz in the 2009 Oxford Regional. Nikhazy struck out the last five and six of the last seven batters he faced and threw 119 pitches, recovering from a couple shaky moments to shut down the Seminoles and leave with a lead.
“That’s Doug,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “We’ve all seen it. When the game is on the line, he can take it to another gear. He can throw 110, 115 pitches, and he can reach back and get a little something extra with the game on the line. We needed all that tonight.”
Broadway got his 15th save of the season with the final six outs, and he struck out the side in the ninth.
"What a luxury to have a guy like Taylor to call on," Bianco said.
Ole Miss advances to the regional final and will play the winner of FSU and Southern Miss at 5 p.m. An if-necessary game would be at 6 p.m. Monday. USM beat SEMO, 21-0, earlier on Saturday.
Ole Miss took a two-run lead into the fifth inning, when nine-hole hitter Isiah Perry hit his first home run of the season, and two batters later, Logan Lacey hit another one, tagging Nikhazy for three runs. A runner reached on an error between those at-bats.
Nikhazy struck out the next two batters — which had 34 combined home runs entering the day — to stop the inning, and then continued his run of strikeouts the rest of the way.
After the sixth inning and two more strikeouts, Nikhazy came off the field and yelled at the crowd and the dugout.
“We ain’t done yet,” Nikhazy said. “I said something like that. It was pretty provocative… That’s part of being a good pitcher. Command the energy.”
Nikhazy was fastball-reliant the first time through the order and spotted and stifled he Seminoles with four-seamers and change-ups. But as the game moved along, he fought through and found the breaking ball, twice freezing hitters on full counts with the 12-6 curveball.
He struck out at least two in each of his seven innings and the side in the second and seventh innings.
“I couldn’t throw my curveball at all early on,” Nikhazy said. “Then I just started throwing the crap out of it and diving it.”
Florida State only had one at-bat with a runner in scoring position. Ole Miss was 0-for-7 in that category, but scored two runs on errors twice in the game — on a hard-hit Graham chopper in the first and an air-mailed throw in the seventh inning.
The runs held up because of Nikhazy’s extra energy following Florida State’s quick flurry. His velocity went back into the 90s for his last two innings after pitching at 86-88 at times in the fifth inning.
“Moments like that and you’re in the postseason, you think about how many chances you’re going to get to wear this jersey again,” Nikhazy said. “I flipped a switch in a moment like that.”
