D2 SE REGIONAL: Trojans' pitchers have become team's "horses"

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on May 19, 2016 1:48 PM

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jhayes@newsargus.com

MOUNT OLIVE -- The gaze, normally beady and pointed, held a thousand-yard vacancy over the porch in right field. An early shade of pitch black was gathering the day, and with it, Carl Lancaster's patience.

"That's the most embarrassed I've been on this field in 28 years," he said.

His voice trailed, and for good reason.

The University of Mount Olive baseball team -- his program -- had just allowed 30 hits during a seemingly endless February twinbill versus Florida Southern. Form and discipline, long characteristics of his championship outfits, were AWOL.

The effort -- or lack thereof -- was the most warped in a stretch that saw UMO allow 41 runs in six games. It was a stampede that left his club at 3-3 overall, but in reality, much worse for the wear.

They were being devoured, and March had yet to arrive.

Something had to give -- and soon.

*

The quiet one is from Tennessee.

Austin Hutchison hails from Dandridge, a nickle-sized slice of Americana along the French Broad River. Small and quaint and homespun satisfied, it gives the world plenty of humble, honest souls.

But don't be fooled.

They grow snipers there, too, and the soft-spoken righty will deal you -- just ask any of his 90 strikeout victims this year.

The grinding wheel, Hutchison's polar opposite, is from the burbs.

Bruce Zimmerman is an honor student, formerly of Towson University provenance. Sturdy and economical, he fits the bill of a kid sent to pickle town straight from the Greater Baltimore SAG office of can't-miss prospects.

The lefty also has a sales job on the weekends, dishing unhittable noxious-grade gas to college kids from a mound near you.

Then there's the wild card.

Brighton Hudson is a mop-top sophomore from the shadows of Raleigh, a converted reliever gone legit. He looks like a slide bluesman, this kid, traveling the Conference Carolinas juke-joint circuit and locating fastballs in chopped up, 4/4 time.

Mr. Rock'n'roll is a lefty, too.

Individually, the trio looks and sounds as different as is humanly possible. They are a mixture of long and short vowels, power and precision and the kid who looks like he missed curfew -- again.

But together, branded and rebranded in the Trojan Way, they are one of the reasons -- perhaps the primary reason -- that UMO is back in the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional.

*

When it went bad, the group locked in.

They restricted access to the UMO pen, sought counsel from those who mattered -- especially catcher Brett Lang -- and reshaped their identity.

Free advice was summarily dismissed.

"It was just everything the coaches always talk about," Zimmerman said, "the tradition here, the continued excellence... We had to give our team the best chance to win every weekend."

And what that required was work -- lots of it.

There was bullpen. Long toss and band reps. A steady diet of med balls, vertical jumps, running poles and soft tissue treatment.

Along the way, they found a new stride.

Gone were the disjointed starts and box scores that resembled Dow Jones timeplots. A sense of calm emerged amongst them, and further, a revamped set of statistics.

And while casual observers may believe the staff's work fits the bill of better-late-than-never, the notion simply isn't true.

It's just better.

Following the rough start, the trio went on to make 40 appearances, issuing return-to-dugout fare a staggering 193 times. They weren't much on freebies, either, allowing just 41 walks over the same span.

On the year, they have tossed 261 of UMO's 431 innings played -- a freight bundle of 61 percent.

Call it group therapy.

"We got the mindset that we're capable of winning... pitching to our ability," said Hudson, " (and) started throwing with more conviction, believing in our approach."

*

The record books are heavy at UMO, trimmed always in green and white, and on scarce occasion, glory gold.

The pages hold the ripened spoils of All-Americans, conference titles and a certain skipper's Eastwood-like haunt through the complex on Highway 117 south.

But just because the program has broken molds and inspired models doesn't mean it's always rosy -- it's not. Sometimes, those books need a dusting, the pages refreshing.

And a community to care for the honor.

"More than anything," Hutchison said, "the players behind me when I start, they're comfortable... they know what I'm capable of, what I can do."

Quiet confidence.

It's a language of its own, and one spoken every spring at Mount Olive. But as a right, it must be earned through plain diligence. Reinvention, if necessary.

That's exactly what these hilltoppers have done.