[Music].
With a long night at the park in the books,
the Rebels return to Swayze,
knowing the key to a successful double header
is coffee in large doses.
Be a nice spread.
Hopefully there's a casserole.
A sausage-egg casserole.
I really just want coffee.
That too. Get the caffeine levels up.
We're going to drink it dark,
but I'm going to need a little bigger cup than this,
I'll tell you that much.
This thing is tiny, but we'll take what we can get.
I'm going to shoot for four of these in total.
I don't know how many ounces those are.
About eight cups.
Eight cups of coffee.
I am exhausted.
About a one-to-one-ratio-type guy,
a lot of creamer, a little bit of coffee.
It makes it taste good.
No way.
How much coffee you going to do today?
None. You kidding me?
SEC weekend, I am drinking some right now,
so I guess we need a little bit.
But four don't get us jacked up.
Connor is the guy who actually shows up 30 minutes early
and drink like four cups of coffee
before anyone gets here just so nobody sees how tired
and how not ready he is.
And then he'll, you know, tell everyone how great he is
because he was here 30 minutes early.
So, a bunch of hoopla.
What does that mean for you?
I don't need coffee to get energized; okay?
I'm energized on life.
I always have juice.
Much like breakfast is the most important meal of the day,
Mike Bianco knows the key to being successful
in the SEC starts on the mound,
and Freshman Doug Nikhazy has provided the juice
each time he's stepped up on the hill.
Hey, listen, I'm going to say this before you walk out,
be yourself today; all right?
I know you're from Florida
and you're pitching against Florida and all of that.
Now you're successful since you're just Doug Nikhazy; right?
You don't have to throw 96 today.
You just got to be yourself and make pitches; right?
Down in the zone, just like we saw last night.
Guys that seem to win a lot of baseball games,
you know, the teams score more runs for them.
They play better defense.
And it's not because they do it consciously.
I think they do it subconsciously
because they're real relaxed.
They know that this guy's going to have a good outing for them.
And, you know, Doug is certainly
starting to have that feeling about them.
The young man who began the year in the bullpen
and he got some big midweek starts against BCU,
one against Louisville, pitched well.
Put him into the weekend rotation
just a couple weekends ago, and he has not looked back.
He acts like a season vet, you know,
a guy that's been pitching on the weekends
for a couple years now.
Strike two. One ball, two strikes.
Swing and a miss.
Struck him out on a 91-fast ball.
Kind of get through that first inning and kind of see
that I kind of had my feet underneath me.
And then from there, it's just all process
of getting in a rhythm and then rolling through the rest of it.
Swing and a miss. Struck him out with back foot curve ball.
Second strike out for Nikhazy.
Yeah.
Ole Miss leading 5 to 1 in the fifth.
Here's the full-count pitch again to Duran.
Swing and a miss.
Struck him out on an 89 fast ball.
Nikhazy wins the battle. A little fist-bump action.
Did you see him?
A little fist bump there.
I mean, this is the Floridian pitching
against the almighty Gators.
You know that's got to be part of his little makeup today.
At one point, tipped my cap to one of my good friends,
Brady McConnell, who I grew up playing with in summer baseball,
so it's always running through your head,
but it never influences the way you pitch.
You always just try to be the same person
that I did to get myself here,
and then just always throw one pitch at a time.
That's a good setup, away, again the one-two.
Set him up, swing and a miss. Strike three.
One ball two strikes to Young to pitch. Swing and a miss.
He struck him out on an 89 fast ball.
He elevated a hair, Doug Nikhazy.
And he delivers. Strike three.
There's a paint the corner, and that will end the inning.
What a job by Doug Nikhazy.
He just kept pumping them in there, didn't he, BK?
He sure did.
Hey, man, nice job, man.
Hang in there.
As the newcomer tamed the Gator backs,
one of the most well-known Rebel names
was navigating the swamp at the dish.
Grae, it's a show.
Like every single time he steps out on the field,
he's a performer.
Grae Kessinger,
now 20 games in a row he has reached base safely.
In SEC play, Kessinger hitting .342.
Season average kind of got off to a slow start, just .287.
You know, one of those things when you start,
I wanted to have, but just trying to stay confident
and, you know, being aggressive.
I don't want to lose my aggressiveness.
Infield is in. Line drive, base hit to left for Kessinger.
And he'll get an RBI. He's got another two-hit game.
Since SEC play has started,
he has just really continued to come on,
and it's been a huge difference-maker in our lineup.
The bases are loaded for a red-hot Grae Kessinger.
Big-moment game right here.
The Gators want to stay in range.
The Rebels need a little separation here,
with two down, bases full.
Grae Kessinger two for two with two singles.
You know, I want to be a guy that's in that spot,
go out there and have a little fun,
and pretty good swing, and see what happens.
Tyler Dyson delivered the one-one. Swung on.
Line drive left center field. He has done it again.
One run score. Two run score.
Olenek to third, slides in safely,
and Kessinger scoots to second.
Line drive base hit to left.
When the man is locked in, the man is locked in.
He'll climb into second base with a base-clearing double,
and Grae Kessinger is having a day.
Ten to one Ole Miss.
I'm not sure if I've had a five RBI game or not,
but it's definitely fun.
It feels good, and especially when your team is winning,
it adds a little joy to it.
Listen, congratulations
and, you know, big day for a lot of people today.
You know, Doug was tremendous for us again.
It's all about the offense.
We had 20 hits or somewhere about that,
and a lot of big days,
but none bigger than Mr. Kessinger.
Good boy.
When it turns 4:00 o'clock, all right,
it's waking up the next morning to play another baseball game.
You can't just sit there and continue to pat yourself
on the back and continue to say, oh, wow, what a good weekend.
Do you want the kiss of death? Do you want the mediocre thing?
You at least won two out of three; right?
That's what the average people said; right?
At 4:00 o'clock, the champions go,
this is an opportunity to sweep.
We have a really good team
that's going to beat people down the line; right?
So, nothing else to do for the next, you know,
four hours, just to play really good baseball
and finish the week out; all right? Nice job.
Let's do it.