Arkansas baseball SS Wehiwa Aloy named finalist for Golden Spikes Award

Arkansas baseball shortstop Wehiwa Aloy has been named a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award.

Aloy joins a shortlist that include’s Tennessee pitcher Liam Doyle and Florida State shortstop Alex Lodise as the three final candidates for college baseball’s most prestigious individual honor. Doyle and Aloy will face off this weekend in the Fayetteville Super Regional, with a trip to the College World Series on the line.

“(Aloy) is the best player in the country. For me that’s pretty simple,” Arkansas outfielder Charles Davalan said earlier this year.

Already the SEC Player of the Year, Aloy is slashing a team-leading .355/.440/.686 with 20 home runs, tied for fourth most in program history. He has 64 RBIs and has started all 59 games this season for the Razorbacks.

He also leads the team in nearly every major category, including batting average (.355), slugging percentage (.686), on-base plus slugging (1.126), runs scored (77), hits (86), doubles (18), extra-base hits (39) and total bases (166).

The junior from Hawaii is the fifth Razorback finalist since the Golden Spikes Award’s inception and would be the third winner in program history behind outfielder Andrew Benintendi (2015) and pitcher Kevin Kopps (2021).

“You make a mistake, (Aloy) hit a ball it seemed like 500 foot to the pull-side at Florida,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said earlier this year. “He hit one over the batter’s eye that’s as hard a ball as I’ve ever seen hit in college over at Georgia to tie that game, dead center. And he can also go the other way. I mean, he’s having a great year.”

Aloy is the fourth Razorback finalist in the Dave Van Horn era, including Benintendi, Kopps and pitcher Hagen Smith (2024). Arkansas is the only program with multiple Golden Spikes Award winners since 2015 as well as the only program with three finalists since 2021.

The 47th Golden Spikes Award will be presented Saturday, June 21, on ESPN at 5:30 p.m. CT prior to first pitch of Game 1 of the Men’s College World Series finals.

Jackson Fuller covers Arkansas football, basketball and baseball for the Southwest Times Record, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at jfuller@gannett.com or follow him @jacksonfuller16 on X, formerly known as Twitter.