Nick's latest baseball outing

By Larry
Wow!!! An incredible finish to the greatest high school baseball game I've attended. BUT! It was a JV game at CC vs Heritage Christain, a class 2A school. This one went I "think" 11 innings. Nicholas plays varsity and plays "only" if he is to pitch which hasn't been much. And that's only in critical situations it appears. He has not pitched since The Frontier game almost 10 days or so ago. He plays JV at 3rd base and left field but hasn't pitched since the 1st game of the year.

Today's game was a 1st round of some sort of tourney involving some decent religious schools thru out Indiana. 8 teams are involved and the 1st rd is played at 4 different locations. 4 teams will come together for the finals at a later date, school size does not count. Austin Munn, the other standout freshman pitcher I mentioned that is playing varsity dressed for this one. He is having a great freshman year pitching for varsity, his record is 2-0. He threw a 1 hit shuout against Carroll, went the distance. Pitched another shutout game against ???? Nick starts on 3rd base today. Billy Musiek starts on the mound. He goes 4 innings. Austin goes 2 shaky innings.

The game: HC (Heritage Christain) The game is tied 2-2 at the end of one & Nicholas had a triple in the inning. Both pitchers settle down & at the end of 3 it's HC 3 CC 2. (Actually unsure of the scoring at end of what innings but know who got the leads.)

We get a run in the 4th to tie it 3-3. 6th inning HC gets a run and at the end of 6 it's HC 4 CC 3. In the top of the last (7th) HC does not score. Bottom of the 7th in some incredible timing of hits and base running skills we squeeze in a run to tie it 4-4 at the end of 7, EXTRA INNINGS!!!

Nicholas had warmed up in the bullpen in this inning. We're they actually going to pitch him? He has not pitched JV since the very 1st game in which he closed out the last 2 innings....a 6 up 6 down affair. Austin, the other freshman had pitched the last 2 innings & was struggling giving up the 1 go ahead run. 8th inning, Nicholas heads to the mound. 2 GO's back to him and a K. (3 batters faced) We don't score, inning 9 now. Nick K's 2 and gets an out on an infield play. (6 batters faced) Inning 10, we don't score. Nick gets 2 more K's and another out somehow in the infield. (9 batters faced) He's in this zone where he's pumping his fist & hard, he's usually very laid back. We don't score, inning 11, he gets I "think" 2 more K's and another infield out. (12 batters faced, 12 retired) We squeeze a run in the bottom of the 11th off a couple of hits & a squeeze bunt that scored a runner from 3rd. He's 2-0 with 2 saves.

Now, Nicholas with what success he's had still had not taken this last step in this new pitching process he learned last year...stepping farther towards the plate & following thru with more aggression, like gruntin or making faces as some pitchers do. I always wondered at what time coaches would bring this in. Over the past few times I've seen him pitch he's getting more aggressive. I don't know why but I've only seen the gun placed on him at a game (pitchers). This was the varsity start he got. He hit 80mph on several pitches. Recently with the increase in intensity on his delivery it's clear he's throwing harder. Today, I would give him an easy 80 + mph.

Varsity head coach Bordenet was there pitching some batting practice in the cage right behind the stands. He came out a few times to watch Nicholas and we caught eyes, he shook his head.

I've lost track of most of his stats & can only guess at some stats, K's/W's/hits..etc. I do know 2 stats, counting the high school league last fall he has pitched 27 2/3 innings & has given up that 1 cheap earned run against class 4A #3 Cathedral in the 7th inning when we had 2 team errors. These errors placed the runner on 3rd with 1 out. A fly ball to center brought him in, then Nicholas K'd the last batter. In JV he's faced 18 batters and retired them all.

Varsity pitching coach's wife told me he was to have started against McCutcheon last Friday, that got rained out & rescheduled for Monday. It's clear he won't start now.

Nick's media coverage vs #1 ranked Frontier

By Larry
More media coverage for my son Nick. Nick was brought in to close a rally by #1 class 1A Frontier. They had just scored 3 runs on a triple with 2 outs, making the score 9-7 Frontier. With a runner on 3rd Nick strikes out the batter for the last out. He walks 1 in the 7th & leaves him stranded at 1st. We get 1 run in the 7th & fall short 9-8. Nick's CC team was ranked 5th in class 1A.

#1 class 1A Frontier vs CC, Nick media coverage!

A new baseball season has started

Another baseball season is underway for my son Nicholas. Frustrated that he never made The Varsity Team he did get off to a good start on The JV Team. First game of the year was with The Delphi Oracles. Nicholas' 1st at bat resulted in a skyball into deep right field for a flyout. The next time up he drills a line drive into the right/center gap that landed at about the 320' mark between the 340' & 355' signs for a stand up triple & an rbi. His last at bat was a walk and another scored run.

He did get to close this game out, pitching the last 2 innings in what ended up being done after 5 innings because of the mercy rule. His 1st inning (the games 4th) he got the 1st batter to line out to the shortstop. A measily ground out & then he struck the last batter out, 3 up, 3 down in his debut as a Central Catholic Knight high school baseball player. He finished it off with 3 K's in his 2nd inning (the games 5th) striking out the side. Nicholas got a save for his efforts in an 11-0 win.

Including his high school league season in the fall last year and his 1st 2 innings this year he has these stats.

Innings pitched: 13

Earned runs: 0

Hits given up: 2

K's: 20

Walks: 4

K to W ratio: 5-1

Varsity news

Great, great news!!!!!!!!!! As a freshman, Nicholas has now been invited to start dressing for varsity baseball games at his school, The Central Catholic Knights. He is 1 of 2 freshmen players to make the varsity team.

He may start on the mound against The Seeger Patriots JV team this Monday. He then will dress for a varsity game on Tuesday. Go get em Big Guy!!!!

Nick & high school baseball

My son Nicholas just started a new baseball season. He is now a freshman at CC which means it's big time baseball now. He has been playing on both the JV & the varsity. He has been playing regularly on the JV team. He pitched 2 close out innings in a win having 6 up & 6 down with 4K's.

He has played some on varsity but did get to pitch 2 games with astonishing results. The 1st had a ton of drama in it. Our team is a class 1A school which means it's small. We were playing class 4A Cathedral who is ranked #3 in the state. No way no how did I think he would play against this team since he's only a freshman. I thought he might pitch the last inning at best. I get to the game a bit late and do not see him on the field. I accidentally see him warming up in the bullpen. I thought the game must have started earlier, again thinking he might pitch the last inning. I look at the scoreboard and it's in the 2nd inning and we're down 5-0 already. CC is getting hammered.

2 more warm up pitches and he's off to the mound. It gets worse, bases are loaded!!! A firestorm!!! It's his 1st varsity game, he's only a freshman, bases are loaded and it's against the #3 team in the state!!! There is 2 outs tho. HE K's THE BATTER!!! Out of a big time jam.

Nicholas proceeds to pitch the rest of the game, 5 1/3 innings. He gave up 1 run (which was in the last, the 7th) 2 hits, 1 walk, 1 hit batter. There were 2 team errors in this last inning that brought a runner to 3rd. A deep fly out brought the runner in.

This must have earned him a start because he starts a couple of games later. Nicholas pitched 4 full innings gave up 0 hits, 2 walks, struck out 7, getting his 1st varsity win.

Nick's 1st varsity start, 4 innings of no hit ball!