As you've likely heard, we don't have any live-action contests to cover at LetsGoPeay.com right now. What we do have is free time; oodles and oodles of free time. Enough free time to swap oodles of emails with various people who would know to create a snapshot of the 10 best players in Austin Peay baseball history. Our next Gov great was one of the cornerstones for Austin Peay's first NCAA Tournament appearance.
With the explosion of hitting across college baseball, there aren't a lot of old-school records still standing. Which makes Nate Manning's career particularly interesting.
He's the only Governor with 100 hits in a season—in 1996, the year he was named Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year as the leader of the OVC regular season and tournament champions and the year he hit .394 with 19 home runs, 81 RBI, 70 runs scored and 49 extra-base hits. But anybody can have a season—Manning resonates because he still maintains top-10 status in runs, doubles, home runs, slugging percentage and RBI, categories that have come to be dominated by those whose careers at least entered the 21st century.
1994 was Manning's break-out campaign. After a freshman season that saw him play sparingly (imagine what the numbers might look like now if he was a full-timer all four years), he hit .288 as sophomore with 22 extra-base hits and superb defense to capture the first of two All-OVC nods.
Manning came up big in the big spots, earning OVC Tournament MVP honors his senior season and aiding the Govs win against Southern in the NCAA Tournament Play-In series (a thing that happened long ago, before the modern postseason format existed). He also hit Austin Peay's first home run in NCAA play against Georgia Tech in that season's South II Regional in Baton Rouge.
After his playing days were over in Clarksville, Manning and teammate Chuck Abbott were drafted in the first 10 rounds of the MLB Amateur Draft, with Manning embarking on a five-year career, first with the Cubs and then in the Twins system.
