ATLANTA — Matt Higgins made history with the bat. And because of that, the Bellarmine University senior outfielder is receiving historical recognition.

On Tuesday, Higgins was announced as the ASUN Player of the Year, becoming the first Knight in any sport in the Division-I era to garner the acknowledgement. Additionally, the Louisville native was a first-team ASUN All-Conference selection.

In 2019, Bellarmine's final full season in Division II (2020 was canceled after a month due to the pandemic), Higgins was a consensus D2 All-American. He's emphatically answered how he'd handle D1 pitching in his two years in the NCAA's highest level, earning ASUN All-Conference accolades in both seasons, even while missing a month last year due to injury.

Most impressive is that Higgins delivered one of the best seasons offensively in program history while facing D1 instead of D2 hurlers. His 22 home runs are a single-season program record, rank first in the ASUN and are tied for eighth nationally. His .770 slugging percentage tops the ASUN, is ninth in the country and is fourth in program history.

Besides leading the conference in homers and slugging percentage, Higgins tied for second in the league in RBI (61), tied for third in doubles (20) and runs scored (61), tied for fifth in hits (78), ranked sixth in on-base percentage (.469) and seventh in batting average (.366), tied for ninth in steals (15) and tied for 13th in walks (34).

Bolstering Higgins' candidacy was his dominance in conference play. In 30 ASUN games, he batted .421 with 12 homers, 11 doubles and 34 RBI while posting an .833 slugging percentage and a .528 on-base percentage. Higgins went deep in eight of the 10 ASUN series, homering at least once against every West Division opponent.

Higgins was a two-time ASUN Player of the Week, celebrated on April 11 and May 2. In the former timeframe, the product of Trinity (Ky.) High School was honored among the NCBWA and College Baseball Newspaper National Players of the Week after going 11-for-18 with five homers and 15 RBI in a midweek contest against Eastern Illinois and a three-game series against North Alabama.

Higgins also had notable performances in nonconference action. Most attention-grabbing is that he smashed a homer in both games against No. 1 Tennessee. Higgins launched a homer over the batter's eye in center field at Purdue that was believed to be the longest ever hit at the stadium.

This season, Higgins set the all-time program records for career homers (45) and career RBI (185). He finishes third all-time in hits (261) and runs scored (174), fourth in doubles (57) and sixth in batting average (.372).

While Higgins' Player of the Year acknowledgement is a landmark in the D1 era, overall it's the fifth such honor in program history. Previous recipients — all from the GLVC years — include Zac Wiley (2019), Austin Crutcher (2015), Patrick Brady (2008) and Scott Wiegandt (1989).

In the other ASUN individual awards, Central Arkansas' Tyler Cleveland was named Pitcher of the Year, Kennesaw State's Donovan Cash was recognized as Freshman of the Year and Lipscomb's Caleb Ketchup and Jeff Forehand were acknowledged as the Defensive Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, respectively.

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