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Incoming freshman pitcher Nick Eaton

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Hall of Famer
Incoming freshman pitcher Nick Eaton completed perfect senior season
by Andrew Hussey

The Eatons wouldn’t replace a burnt-out lightbulb that had been defective since the beginning of the baseball season.

Baseball families are superstitious by nature and the Eatons are no exception. That is why during an undefeated season by incoming freshman pitcher Nick Eaton, his father, Mark Eaton, refused to change that broken lightbulb.

Their superstition seemed to pay off.

With Eaton on the rubber as the starting pitcher for the 4A State Championship, Cathedral High School defeated Penn High School 4-3 in extra innings to capture the state title for the first time since 2007 for the Irish. The Irish finished the season undefeated, becoming only the fourth team in state history to do so.

“It was a storybook season with a fairy tale ending,” Nick’s mother, Julie Eaton, said. “I can’t believe those boys did that.”

Nick was a huge part of that story, winning all 11 of his starts in 2017. Over the course of the season, he threw four complete 7-inning games.

He was the ace that the Irish turned to time-and-time again, especially in the state tournament. During his last two seasons at Cathedral, he didn’t lose a game he pitched.

Now, he attempts to break into the pitching staff for the Hoosiers as a freshman next season.

***

Nick was born to pitch.

His father played baseball when he was in high school and when Nick turned out to be a left-hander, Mark saw an opportunity for him to play the game. His parents put him in Little League at the earliest possible age when he was five.

It wasn’t love at first sight, however. At his first practice, he wanted to leave right away.

“He stood between my legs, sucking my thumb saying, ‘I hate baseball and I just want to go home,’’ Julie said. “We took him back the next year when he was six and he decided that he would go ahead and play.”

Pitching came a few years later. He started at age nine when his league moved to kid-pitch and ever since, he has enjoyed commanding the game from the mound.

“I definitely love the feeling of being in control of the game, taking over the game and having the ability to really just shut down teams down and have the defense play behind me,” Nick said.

Coming into his freshman year at Cathedral, he joined a talented team that had lost its own bid for a perfect season in the state championship game in 2013.

Former Cathedral coach Rich Andriole said he knew Nick was going to be good, just by how he threw.

“Nick, physically, has a lot of gifts, and those were apparent when he came in as a 14-year old freshman to Cathedral,” Andriole said. “We knew that he was going to have the skill set to be able to compete at a high level throughout high school.”

However, Andriole said that like most teenagers, Nick had to develop mentally and emotionally, and he didn’t begin the season on the varsity squad. Over the course of the season, he worked his way up and threw some innings for the varsity team.

The ace on that Cathedral team was Ashe Russell, who would later be drafted out of high school by the Kansas City Royals in the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft. Russell would show Nick the ropes for two seasons.

“Having Ashe around my freshman and sophomore year, I would just watch him and learn from him even though we had opposite deliveries,” Nick said. “He has a more funky delivery and I’m more mechanical, but I would look at him and see things that he would do and learn from him in the weight room.”

Andriole said having Russell on the roster helped Nick tremendously.

“It’s a good experience to not be the best player,” Andriole said. “Had Nick come into Cathedral and been the best pitcher as a freshman, who knows what his development ends up looking like in the big picture?”

With so many quality pitchers ahead of Nick, Andriole said it made him learn that he had to work to get better. He saw what those pitchers did on a day-to-day basis and that pushed him to succeed.

***

The summer after his freshman year, his collegiate stock skyrocketed. Playing for the Indiana Prospects, Nick garnered the eye of college coaches at various showcases. At a tournament in Florida, he caught the attention of IU.

His mom said that they always thought we was a good pitcher, but didn’t expect him to play at a higher level. She said she wasn’t prepared for the offers to start coming in and Purdue was the first school to extend him a scholarship.

“We weren’t expecting scholarships from anyone let alone the Big Ten,” Julie said. “So, we were so excited that we got that offer.”

Before they knew it, IU invited him down for a college visit in the fall of his sophomore year. He loved what he saw after visiting campus and meeting with the coaches. That visit made the decision to commit easy for Nick as IU was the school he grew up dreaming of playing for.

The pressure wasn’t off knowing that he had a scholarship. Instead, he pitched the next three seasons hoping to prove that the investment IU made was wise. Over the next two years, he grew even further.

“Where I really think he developed was learning how to channel that competitiveness and become less emotional at not getting a call or becoming less emotional if a guy got a base hit or if teammate didn’t make a play,” Andriole said.

He finished his junior year with a sparkling 8-0 record and a 0.78 ERA, but the season for the Irish ended with a defeat in sectionals against Mt. Vernon High School without him on the mound.

***

A simple text message laid the groundwork for Nick’s magical senior season.

Following the hiring of head coach Ed Freije in June of 2016, Nick quickly sent his new coach a text letting him know he was ready to go and was looking forward to the season. It established that he was a leader for the Irish.

“That showed a lot of maturity because I know going into your senior year, you’re looking at obstacles and a new coaching staff,” Freije said. “I think it really helped us move forward and really set the tone that he was ready to go and there was something to be accomplished with this year’s group.”

As the season progressed, the momentum grew and Cathedral ended the regular season unblemished. Before the playoffs, Nick had a 6-0 record with a 1.20 earned run average and a 53-to-15 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

“Even when things weren’t as sharp or weren’t going his way, he just flat out competes,” Freije said. “He controls a game about as well as anybody I’ve seen from a standpoint of controlling tempo, batters, baserunners and the pace of the game.”

With the weight of the games, Nick was as locked in as ever. In the run to the state championship game, Nick won four games and struck out 28 batters.

“I think it has been the magnitude of the game just knowing you know if we go home,” Nick said. “So, every game, I must have my utmost focus and my utmost intensity.”

But one game stood between the Irish and perfection.

The game was nerve-wracking for his mother, but she had a new superstition for the occasion. When she walked into Victory Field, her friend had noticed an old penny and Julie had picked it up for good luck.

“I rubbed that penny between my finger and my thumb the entire game and it was nervous habit that I was doing,” she said. “I looked down at the penny and I realized I had rubbed it so hard and so much that it was now a bright, shiny coppery penny, like a brand new one.”

After giving up a run in the first inning, Nick cruised for most of the game, seemingly getting better as the game went on. Cathedral got out to a 3-1 lead, before Penn clawed back in the sixth inning to tie the game.

Julie looked at her son and saw a fierce look on his face.

“When they scored those two runs, I took one look at Nick and said he’s not going to let this happen, he’s not going to let them win,” she said.

The Irish would go on to win in extra innings on an Evan Uhland home run. After Nick threw the last pitch of the game to clinch the perfect season, a dog pile ensued.

In that championship game, Nick went eight innings, only allowing two earned runs and striking out seven batters.

“That’s as good a state tournament performance as I’ve seen,” Andriole said. “And that’s not to take away from anybody else, that’s to compliment Nick. There were some big hits in game that he pitched to drive in runs or big plays made defensively, but they are not in position to win without him on the mound. His competitiveness really fueled the mentality of that group in the month of June.”

The celebration didn’t last long as Nick had to report to IU the next day.

Andriole likened the upcoming experience at IU to Nick’s first years at Cathedral where the Irish were loaded with pitching talent. He said that Eaton would have to find his way to emerge and was confident in Nick because of the intangibles he possesses.

“There will be some development and he will need a third pitch,” Andriole said. “The Big Ten is getting better and better, so it won’t be easy. I put money behind Nick Eaton because of his motivation and his competitiveness.”

idsnews.com/article/2017/06/eaton-completes-perfect-season

Go Hoosiers!
 
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Reactions: RBB89 and jmbennett
Certainly agree he'll need a 3rd pitch at the D1 level, but he can be successful because the fastball and curve are that good. The kid is a winner, and he has the want to, hard to teach that. To be honest, he's one of 4 really good arms that are coming in this fall. Nice article find snowling.
 
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