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.