Doug Nikhazy added a sellout crowd and a top-10 team to his recent tear through difficult pitching assignments.
The Ole Miss freshman bested Auburn’s Tanner Burns and Texas A&M’s Asa Lacy the past two weeks, and he dominated LSU at Alex Box Stadium for 6.1 innings on Saturday.
Nikhazy scattered five hits and a single run on 108 pitches to lead Ole Miss in a 5-1 victory that evened the series and gives the Rebels a chance at 2:30 p.m. Sunday to win their first series in Baton Rouge since 1982.
“It was a ton of fun just being in this environment and trying to embrace it,” Nikhazy said. “Unlike last night we embraced being in the moment and really good result for us today.”
The Rebels (31-17, 14-9) and LSU (30-17, 14-9) winner in the series finale will be tied with Mississippi State for second in the SEC West behind Arkansas. Ole Miss faces the Bulldogs and (at) Tennessee in series to close the regular season.
“Lord knows it’s been a while since Ole Miss has won a series down here,” Mike Bianco said. “Maybe tomorrow is the day.”
Two high-profile freshmen are expected to start things on Sunday, as Ole Miss’ Gunnar Hoglund and LSU’s Landon Marceaux each turned down seven-figure signing bonuses in last summer’s MLB First Year Player Draft.
The Rebels have lost exactly two of three games in Baton Rouge the last 10 trips without being swept or winning the series. Every SEC team but Missouri (0-2) has won a series in Baton Rouge since 2004.
Ole Miss had just six hits but three of them went for extra bases including Thomas Dillard’s solo shot that started the scoring in the second inning.
In the fourth inning, freshman Kevin Graham hit an 0-2, two-out offering over the right field wall to score three runs and push the Ole Miss lead to four. Ryan Olenek and Cooper Johnson were on after a single and a walk, respectively.
It was Dillard’s 10th home run but first since March 24 — a span of 22 games. Graham’s decisive home run was his third in SEC play and sixth overall.
Ole Miss was 0-for-10 on the weekend with runners in scoring position before Graham took LSU starter Eric Walker out of Alex Box. That was the Rebels’ only hit with runners in scoring position out of seven chances Saturday. LSU was 1-for-6 in that category. Ole Miss was 2-for-14 with runners on base.
An error brought Anthony Servideo in for the final Ole Miss run in the fifth inning. Servideo doubled for one of his two hits and moved to third on a ground out. Grae Kessinger was hit by a pitch in the inning to reach base in his 36th straight game.
Nikhazy has gone at least five innings in six of his seven SEC starts, and he’s given up only five earned runs in his last 18.1 league innings with an 18-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
“Since we moved him into that Saturday slot he’s been lights out,” Bianco said. “He’s the reigning SEC Freshman of the Week and another candidate again. Just gutsy. He put up zeroes until we got going.”
The left-hander retired the first seven Tigers and escaped a bases loaded jam in the fourth inning. Antione Duplantis had an RBI single with two outs in the sixth for LSU’s only run.
Austin Miller stranded a one-out double against Nikhazy in the seventh and then pitched a perfect eighth inning. Parker Caracci cleaned up three straight batters in the ninth on only 12 pitches to finish things up.
“Miller ran through the meat of the lineup and made it look easy tonight,” Bianco said.
