FAYETTEVILLE — University of Arkansas junior Hagen Smith was named the National Pitcher of the Year on Wednesday by the College Baseball Foundation.

The honor continued a rich postseason for the decorated junior, who is regarded as one of the top pitchers available for the Major League Baseball Draft next month in Arlington, Texas.

Smith, a left-hander from Bullard, Texas, won the honor, considered the Cy Young Award of baseball, over Florida State’s Jamie Arnold, Wake Forest’s Chase Burns, Dallas Baptist’s Ryan Johnson and East Carolina’s Trey Yesevage, the other finalists.

A first-team All-SEC choice and the SEC pitcher of the year, Smith has already been named the Pitcher of the Year by Perfect Game and earned first-team All-American honors from Perfect Game and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association of American.

Smith is a finalist with Georgia’s Charlie Condon and Oregon State’s Travis Bazzana for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the best player in college baseball, which will be announced on Saturday. He was also a finalist for the Dick Howser Trophy, which Condon won last Friday.

This season, Smith finished with a 9-2 record and a 2.04 earned-run average with an NCAA-record 17.3 strikeouts per nine innings. He also led the nation with 4.4 hits allowed per nine innings.

In SEC play, Smith notched a 7-0 record with a 1.35 ERA and 110 strikeouts in 60 innings over 10 starts. He had 161 strikeouts to break David Walling’s Arkansas single-season record of 155 from 1999. Smith also had 360 career strikeouts to surpass Nick Schmidt’s previous record of 345.

Smith also tied the UA single-game strikeout record with 17 on just 78 pitches in six shutout innings in a win over Oregon State at the Kubota College Baseball Series in Arlington, Texas, on Feb. 23. He tied the record held by Jess Todd, who did it on 118 pitches against South Carolina at the 2007 SEC Tournament.

Smith is the second Arkansas pitcher to win the College Baseball Foundation award, joining Kevin Kopps (2021).

Award winners

 A list of the players named as Pitcher of the Year by the College Baseball Foundation:

2024 Hagen Smith, Arkansas

2023 Paul Skenes, LSU

2022 Cooper Hjerpe, Oregon State

2021 Kevin Kopps, Arkansas

2020 No award (Covid-19 pandemic)

2019 Ethan Small, Mississippi State

2018 Luke Heimlich, Oregon State

2017 Steven Gingery, Texas Tech

2016 Eric Lauer, Kent State

2015 Carson Fulmer, Vanderbilt

2014 Aaron Nola, LSU

2013 Jonathan Gray, Oklahoma

2012 Mark Appel, Stnaford

2011 Trevor Bauer, UCLA

2010 Alex Wimmers, Ohio State

2009 Stephen Strasburg, San Diego State

JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) – The Arkansas State volleyball team is coming off their first postseason appearance since 2018. Now they are gearing up for another run as they get ready for the 2024 season.

The Red Wolves will open the season at home on August 30th battling with Southeast Missouri and Ole Miss. They’ll face Saint Louis to conclude the A-State Invitational.

The squad then heads to Middle Tennessee for a tough 3 game stretch. Taking on Lehigh, Austin Peay and the Blue Raiders in back-to-back to back nights.

Then they hit the road to take on North Alabama, U-N-A and UAB and Jacksonville State.

Non-Conference play wraps up September 20th against former Sun Belt foe Western Kentucky.

A-State returns home welcoming Georgia State to open Sun Belt Conference Play, followed by a trip to Southern Miss. U-L-M will visit October 11th and 12th, before heading to Texas State to battle with the Bobcats. Then the Trojans of Troy head to Jonesboro at the end of October.

A trip to Louisiana to start November, before welcoming South Alabama to town for the final home matches of the season. The Red Wolves close out the regular season against Old Dominion November 14-15.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – During its special session Wednesday, the Arkansas House passed a resolution opposing an abortion amendment that organizers are trying to put before voters.

The proposed amendment is still in the process of gathering signatures to qualify to put the measure on the November 2024 ballot, but House Resolution 1003, filed by Rep. Ryan Rose (R-Van Buren), is encouraging “all registered voters to vote against it.”

The resolution passed on a voice vote, but not before some lawmakers spoke out against it. Rep. Andrew Collins (D-Little Rock) said he was against the resolution and said the decision on the amendment should be left to voters.

“They’re our bosses,” Collins said. “We don’t usually tell them what to do with their vote in elections. But here we are doing that.”

The proposed amendment would prevent Arkansas from restricting access to abortion up to 18 weeks after conception and would allow for abortions after that time in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly or to save the life of the mother.

The Arkansas abortion amendment measure has faced a number of challenges. Organizers behind the proposal first had to make three submissions to the attorney general’s office before the ballot language and name were certified.

After that certification, the groups behind the amendment, For AR People & Arkansans for Limited Government, had to start collecting the more than 90,700 signatures required to get the bill on the November ballot.

In a statement Tuesday after it was first filed, For AR People called the resolution a “clear attempt by lawmakers to weaponize private, intimate healthcare decisions that should be left between patients and their doctors.”

Those efforts have faced stiff opposition throughout the state. A group called Arkansans for Common Sense was started to ask voters not to sign the petitions trying to get the measure on the ballot while multiple county quorum courts passed resolutions declaring themselves “pro-life.”

Organizers have until July 5 to submit the signatures they have gathered for review.