NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Three Notre Dame (3-0) pitchers have been named to the 2024 National College Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Stopper of the Year preseason watch list. Junior RHP Radek Birkholz and graduate students RHP Bennett Flynn and RHP Nate Hardman earned selection to the award’s watch list, which honors the top relief pitcher in Division I College Baseball.
Notre Dame is one of just two programs with three student-athletes named to the 2024 watch list, the most among any program.
All three pitchers played a role in Notre Dame’s opening series sweep of Rice Feb. 16-18.
Birkholz earned the win in Game One of the Rice series, pitching three full innings and posting three strikeouts, allowing zero runs and zero hits during his time on the mound. In 2023, Birkholz pitched 44.0 innings for the Irish, earning a 2-3 record and totaling 35 strikeouts while holding opponents to a .232 batting avg. He started four games for the Irish. He was the 2021 Gatorade Colorado Player of the Year coming out of high school.
Flynn, a graduate transfer from Davidson, pitched in two games at Rice, totaling 2.2 innings and four strikeouts, a season total which leads all Irish pitchers in 2024. Flynn was named to the Atlantic 10 First Team in 2022 and 2023, and the Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American Team in 2020. Flynn set the Davidson program mark for strikeouts per nine innings in a career (13.4). In 2023, he pitched 56.1 innings and totaled 82 strikeouts.
Hardman is a two-time honoree on the Stopper of the Year watch list, having also been selected in 2023. In the opening series at Rice, Hardman earned two saves, entering for the final innings to combine for 2.1 innings pitched and just one run allowed. A graduate transfer from Evansville, he pitched 38.0 innings for the Purple Aces in 2023, posting 52 strikeouts.
For the full NCBWA Preseason Watch List, click here.
The Irish continue the season with a four-game series at FIU Feb. 23-25 (Saturday doubleheader).