Smith Named College Baseball Foundation All-American; Earns Unanimous First-Team Status with Sixth Selection
LUBBOCK, Texas – Arkansas ace Hagen Smith has been named an All-American by the College Baseball Foundation, securing his sixth and final first-team All-America honor of the postseason to achieve unanimous status.
Smith, previously crowned the National Pitcher of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings, College Baseball Foundation and Perfect Game, earned first-team All-America selections from all six of the major baseball award publications, including ABCA/Rawlings, Baseball America, College Baseball Foundation, D1Baseball, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Perfect Game. Smith is the first Razorback to achieve unanimous first-team All-America status since Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy winner Kevin Kopps did so in 2021.
The Razorback junior left-hander is the sixth two-time All-American in school history, joining program greats Kevin McReynolds (1980-81), Jeff King (1985-86), Phillip Stidham (1990-91), David Walling (1998-99) and Nick Schmidt (2006-07). Smith is just the fourth Arkansas pitcher in history to earn All-America honors in consecutive seasons.
Smith proved to be the best pitcher in all of college baseball in 2024, completing the campaign with a 9-2 record, 2.04 ERA and 161 strikeouts in 84.0 innings over 16 starts. Named the Southeastern Conference Pitcher of the Year after going 7-0 with a 1.35 ERA and 110 strikeouts in 60.0 innings over 10 SEC starts on the mound, Smith led the country with an NCAA-record 17.25 strikeouts per nine innings on the season and finished ranked first nationally in hits allowed per nine innings (4.4), second in strikeouts (161), fourth in ERA (2.04) and seventh in WHIP (0.89).
The Bullard, Texas, native posted a team-leading 11 quality starts and logged a program-record 11 double-digit strikeout games on the year, becoming the program’s all-time career strikeout king and single-season strikeout leader during his historic 2024 campaign. Smith, who raised his career strikeout total to 360, overtook Schmidt (345) for sole possession of Arkansas’ career strikeout mark in addition to surpassing Walling’s single-season strikeout record of 155 set in 1999 to move atop the program’s single-season strikeout leaderboard (161).
In one of the greatest pitching performances in program history, Smith tied Arkansas’ single-game record with his 17-strikeout gem on 78 pitches over six shutout innings against Oregon State on Feb. 23 in the Kubota College Baseball Series at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Smith matched Razorback great Jess Todd’s single-game strikeout record (17), doing so in 40 fewer pitches than Todd threw against South Carolina on May 24, 2007, in the SEC Tournament.
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