TAMPA, Fla. – Luke Fikar was with Sickles High when he took the field at the University of Tampa during the prestigious Saladino Baseball Tournament. He loved the field, with its picturesque setting across the Hillsborough River from downtown Tampa. He also learned about the tradition of UT Spartans baseball, which he also fell in love with. A few years later, Fikar is a part of that tradition.
“It’s a dream come true,” said the Tampa native, who played his first two seasons of college baseball at HCC before transferring to UT last fall. “It meant the world when (coach Joe) Urso gave a me a chance to play there and that I could have an impact on winning a national championship.”
An impact on winning a national championship? Fikar was the winning pitcher in three of the Spartans’ Division II World Series games in Cary, N.C., and went 6-for-17 (.353) with two RBI in five games during the tournament. He was named the tourney’s most outstanding player on a team that became the first in D-II history to win three straight titles.
Fikar, a righthander who went 5-0 with seven saves and 1.98 ERA on the season while batting .296, moved from second base to the mound twice in the three-game championship series against West Chester, and was the winning pitcher in both. He was on the mound in last Saturday’s 8-4 clincher, and in relief of 13-game winner John Luke Glanton, when he got the Golden Rams’ Austin Stalker to fly out – “fastball middle-way” — to center fielder Jordan Evans for the final out.
“I don’t think it has fully hit me yet,” said Fikar, on Thursday morning. “I went back and watched the videos and it makes feel like, ‘Wow, we really did it.’ It’s crazy.”
How did he feel when Evans made the final putout of 2026?
“I knew Jordan would catch it, so I took off my glove and got ready to throw it,” he said. “As soon as the ball landed in his glove, I threw my glove, turned to the dugout and told them to come out and dogpile.”
Fikar managed to emerge unscathed and hoist the championship trophy for the first time.
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