It’s been a productive week for Liam Doyle.
After recording the final seven outs in Monday night’s Knoxville Regional victory over Wake Forest, the Tennessee junior pitcher on Wednesday afternoon was named among the three finalists for the Golden Spikes Award, which honors the country’s top amateur baseball player. Arkansas junior shortstop Wehiwa Aloy and Florida State junior shortstop Alex Lodise are the other finalists.
Aloy and the third-seeded Razorbacks (46-13) host Doyle and the 14th-seeded Volunteers (46-17) in a best-of-three NCAA super regional that starts Saturday.
Doyle, who spent his first college season at Coastal Carolina and last year at Ole Miss, has assembled a 10-3 record and a 2.84 earned run average with the Vols. The 6-foot-2, 220-pound left-hander from Derry, New Hampshire, has racked up 158 strikeouts in 92 innings pitched, with his strikeout total and his 15.46 strikeouts per nine innings leading all Division I pitchers.
Tennessee has never produced a Golden Spikes Award winner, with Todd Helton (1995), Chris Burke (2001) and Luke Hochevar (2005) serving as the program’s three previous finalists. Doyle’s 158 strikeouts so far this season have topped Hochevar’s previous school standard of 154.
The Golden Spikes Award has been around since 1978, when Arizona State standout and future Atlanta Braves third baseman Bob Horner claimed the honor. There have been 11 Golden Spikes Award winners from Southeastern Conference schools, including LSU outfielder Dylan Crews in 2023 and Georgia infielder/outfielder Charlie Condon last year.
This year’s Golden Spikes Award winner will be announced June 21 at 6:30 p.m., with the revealing televised by ESPN before the first game of the best-of-three championship finals at the College World Series.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.