OMAHA, Neb. -- For almost four months now, Rice junior Chris Kolkhorst has insisted his teammates call him by his self-given nickname, "The Gritman."

It's supposed to represent his gritty toughness, but instead has brought about mounds of teasing. "You can't make up your own nickname," his teammates often tell him in not-so-family-like words. "You've got to earn it."

	Rice's Chris Kolkhorst collided with the wall, but made the catch in the 8th inning.

Well, on Saturday night at Game 1 of the College World Series, Kolkhorst did just that. He got his team in the game, he kept his team in the game -- and then in the 10th inning, he won the game for his team. All with a throbbing leg and what he called a "floating knee cap" after a nasty bullpen spill in the first inning.

It was the ultimate all-around performance. His third-inning triple set up Rice's first run. His lead-off walk in the 10th set up the game-winning run. In between, the left-fielder's jaw-dropping two-out catch in the eighth inning, with the go-ahead run on base, slammed the breaks on Stanford's quest to retake the lead.

"Are you kidding me?" said Rice second baseman Enrique Cruz. "He's earned the right to be called Gritman for the rest of his life. We should put it on his jersey. And anybody on the team that has a problem with it, I'm going to shut them up."

At just 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, Kolkhorst is the type of player who enjoys getting hit by pitches, is angry when he doesn't get his uniform dirty and idolizes the blue-collar ways of former major leaguer Lenny Dykstra.

He got the idea for the nickname after hearing teammate Dane Bubela, who Kolkhorst played with at junior college, tell a story about a tough guy who called himself Gritman.

"I told them, 'I'm tough. I'm pesky. I'm the Gritman,' " Kolkhorst said. "Call me the Gritman."

His teammates have been giving him a hard time ever since.

	“	It was unbelievable. I think it was the best catch I've ever seen in such a clutch situation. I mean, that was sick. ”
		— Rice's Enrique Cruz on Kolkhorst's catch

Saturday night, the teasing continued when Kolkhorst chased a foul ball in the first inning and tripped on the bullpen mound, tumbling on his face. He busted his glasses and twisted his knee but didn't think twice about coming out of the game.

"There was no way that I could get (the ball)," he said. "But for whatever reason, I thought I could. I don't know why.

"My knee cap was moving around the whole game. But it's hard to get much sympathy when you fall in the bullpen like that."

Prior to Game One, Kolkhorst's teammates had teased him that Stanford outfielder Danny Putnam, who hit the game-winning home run for the Cardinal on Thursday night and who also plays left field, and wears No. 7, had been getting all the attention. They told Kolkhorst that he wasn't even the best No. 7 left fielder in the stadium.

So in the eighth inning Saturday, when Putnam laced a two-out line drive over Kolkhorst's right shoulder, the Gritman chased it down, leapt as high as he could, snagged the ball in the tip of his glove, crashed into the wall and fell to the ground. The ball didn't dare roll out. And Stanford didn't dare score the go-ahead run.

"It was unbelievable," said Cruz, the son of former major league All-Star Jose Cruz. "I think it was the best catch I've ever seen in such a clutch situation. I mean, that was sick. I had to be the first one out there to congratulate him, just because it was so incredible. He saved the day."

He did. And for that reason, perhaps Gritman just won't work. Perhaps, if Rice goes on to win the national championship, it should be Mighty Mouse.

Starting pitcher Jeff Niemann, who at that point hadn't given up a hit in 4 2/3 innings, felt his heart drop when the ball left Putnam's bat and headed toward -- make that, over -- Kolkhorst.

"I just hoped he'd get it," Niemann said. "The ball kept going, he kept going and then I saw him jump up and grab it. It was a huge break. That turned the entire game around and really gave us some emotion."

Kolkhorst made another leaping catch an inning later. With a runner at second, he snagged Chris Carter's line drive by retreating a few steps, jumping straight up in the air and grabbing the ball while fully extended.

Yet there was one final crucial play involving Kolkhorst -- and he didn't even realize it at the time. It came in the 10th inning, when, after leading off the inning with a walk and advancing to second on a sacrifice bunt, he came around to score on a wild throw by Stanford pitcher Kodiak Quick.

All Kolkhorst saw was the routine grounder that teammate Austin Davis hit back to quick. He came around third to score anyway, just to go through the motions. Then, when he looked up, his teammates were mobbing him.

"I see their first baseman on the ground and everybody is jumping on me and I had no idea what happened," Kolkhorst said. "I had to ask somebody, 'What in the world just happened? Did we win?' "

They did. And largely because of the pesky kid who finally seems to have earned his nickname. Truth be told, Kolkhorst and his teammates made a deal about the nickname long before they made it to Omaha. They told him if the Owls win the national championship, which they're now one win away from doing, they'll call him whatever goofy name he wants.

"Tonight certainly helped," Kolkhorst said. "But right now, I'm the self-procclained Gritman, which really isn't all that good. But one more win and it'll definitely be official."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at wayne.drehs@espn3.com.