Gaddis’ Shutout Leads Furman At SoCon Tournament

GREENVILLE, S.C.—Pitching in the Southern Conference isn’t an easy line of work. You’re facing one prolific offense after another and doing it in one hitter-friendly ballpark after another. More often than not, winning means out-hitting everyone else.

Except when you’re Furman and you can send Will Gaddis to the mound.

Furman opened the SoCon tournament Wednesday morning against East Tennessee State, a team averaging 7.7 runs per game to rank 16th in the nation. The Paladins, the No. 4 seed, aren’t an offensive juggernaut, at least by SoCon standards, but they do have Gaddis, the SoCon pitcher of the year. On this day, that was one heck of an equalizer. The sophomore righthander threw a four-hit shutout to send his team into the winners bracket with a 3-0 win.

“You saw why Will Gaddis was pitcher of the year in the Southern Conference this year,” said Furman head coach Ron Smith, in his 23rd season. “What he has done the last two years I think is remarkable. He’s never missed a start. Always goes out there and even if he doesn’t have his best stuff, he gives us an opportunity to win. Really good competitor, and he was at the top of his form today.”

The Buccaneers had seen Gaddis before. He threw seven innings against them in a 6-5 Furman win in Johnson City on April 1. Watching the film of that game, the Bucs and coach Tony Skole thought they knew what they were up against—a low 90s fastball with a curve and changeup. Except Gaddis had something else up his sleeve, a new-and-improved mid-80s cutter. So much for the scouting report.

Gaddis came out and fanned two in the top of the first, the first of four one-two-three innings he turned in on the day. An ETSU offense that scored 31 runs in its final series of the season against the Citadel only got a runner to third base once against Gaddis, and he finished the day with eight strikeouts and only one walk.

“(The cutter’s) one of the pitches we’ve been working on, me and (pitching coach Brett Harker), in the bullpens,” Gaddis said. “Kind of basing everything off my fastball. I had my changeup working today pretty well and finally found my curveball. My cutter was just the go-to pitch. It felt good today.”

Gaddis only faced real danger once, when he gave up back-to-back singles to Aaron Maher and Kevin Phillips to start the top of the second. A sac bunt moved the runners to second and third, but Gaddis buckled down, getting a fly to shallow center and a grounder to first to escape the jam. ETSU never even put another runner in scoring position.

“I thought we had a chance to get to him early,” Skole said. “If we’d scratched a run there, it would’ve given our guys a little bit of freedom to maybe loosen up, but he really beared down there and got out of it. He just settled in and made it tough for us all day . . . I was hoping the early morning hour might get to him, slow him down a little bit. But if he pitched a better game this season, I’d like to see it. He was pretty dominant against a pretty good offensive ballclub.”

Gaddis’ eight strikeouts were one off his season high, albeit not by design. The Paladins’ have preached a pitch-to-contact approach, with Gaddis’ getting away from throwing too many chase pitches when ahead in the count and instead simply continuing to pound the zone. It all added up to a 99-pitch complete game, helped along by a pair of ground ball double plays in the late innings.

Gaddis didn’t have a wide margin for error, either, as the game stayed scoreless until Griffin Davis’ solo home run in the bottom of the fifth. A couple insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth finally gave the Paladins some cushion, but by then there was little doubt Gaddis was going back for the ninth. He promptly set ETSU down on just seven pitches.

“You’ve got a team that had six guys in their lineup hitting over .300, and they’d been playing very well,” Smith said. “That’s about as well as he’s pitched, but that’s certainly what he’s capable of. The type of competitor he is, I think the bigger it is, the better he’s going to pitch. He doesn’t try to do too much. He stays within himself.”

Gaddis acknowledged after the game that this was “probably” his best game as a collegian. Considering the moment, it’s hard to argue. In a tournament that can turn into a pitching meat grinder as the week wears on, getting a complete game to start it off is absolutely ideal, as the Paladins move on to face top seed Mercer in Thursday’s winners bracket game.

If Furman goes deep enough, the question will inevitably come up about whether Gaddis might reappear. But for now, he couldn’t have given his team any more than he did Wednesday.

“Every time he’s on the mound,” Smith said, “we feel like we have a chance.”