Ard, Opata Named To NCBWA Southeast All-Region Teams
DAHLONEGA – The No. 22 University of North Georgia (UNG) baseball team had two players named to the National College Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Southeast All-Region Team per the association's announcement Friday.
Junior center fielder Andrews Opata was named to the NCBWA Southeast All-Region First Team while redshirt junior Phillip Ard earned a spot on the All-Region Second Team.
Opata earned the first All-Region acclaim of his career with Friday's announcement. The 2025 Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year and All-Conference First Team selection has been a bona fide star this season for the Nighthawks.
Opata finished the regular season ranked fifth nationally in runs and hits. He also ranked ninth in stolen bases with 40 swipes on the year, which is four shy of the UNG single season record.
His 60 RBIs ranked No. 35 among all hitters nationally.
A hitting machine with a regular-season batting average of .380, Opata led the team with 31 multi-hit games this year. He also had 14 multi-RBI games which ranked second on the team behind his fellow all-region selection.
Ard led the team and ranked third in the country with a staggering 91 RBIs this season, shattering the program single-season record of 78 set by Richie Daigle back in 2005.
The PBC All-Conference Second Team and All-Tournament Team selection also ranked fourth in the country with 22 home runs this season. In an elimination game against No. 26 Carson-Newman in the 2025 Southeast Regional on Friday, Ard belted a go-ahead, two-run homer in the eighth inning to tie the program record for most homers in a single season.
The slugging first baseman led the team with 20 multi-RBI games this season. His 1.72 RBIs per game average ranked second in the country entering postseason play.
After Opata and Ard saved UNG's season with a pair of eighth-inning, two-run homers each, the Nighthawks survived and advanced to play Saturday in the Southeast Regional. UNG will face second-seeded No. 14 Belmont Abbey in another elimination game at 4 p.m. Saturday.
A win against the Crusaders pushes the Nighthawks back into the winner's bracket where they will face elimination once again Saturday at 7 p.m. against third-seeded No. 12 Lenoir-Rhyne.
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