Whenever coach Elliott Avent is asked to talk about freshman pitcher Jimmy Gillheeney, one word always seems to work its way into the conversation: “maturity.”
Avent loves to rave about the lefty’s pinpoint control and his ability to throw any pitch, in any count, at any point, for a strike.
“He’s just a guy that throws strikes,” sophomore Eric Surkamp, Gillheeney’s roommate on the road, said.
Avent has even gone so far as to compare Gillheeney to New York Mets’ left-hander Tom Glavine — high praise considering the guy’s won 291 games and is headed to the Hall of Fame.
“I don’t remember having a freshman pitcher with this kind of poise in my tenure here,” Avent said.
But for Gillheeney, the expectations and the spotlight are nothing new. Since he was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school, he’s pitched in front of professional scouts.
See, Gillheeney went to Bishop Hendrickson High School in Johnston, R.I., a suburb of Providence. To most people in North Carolina that may not mean much, but in Rhode Island it certainly carries some weight.
In a span of nine years, from 1997 to 2005, Bishop Hendrickson won seven Division I state championships, which included Gillheeney’s freshman, sophomore and junior seasons. The school also sent players to Division I colleges and even straight to the majors.
During Gillheeney’s sophomore season, Hendrickson had a right-hander named Jay Rainville, who garnered a lot of national attention and was drafted 39th overall by the Minnesota Twins. During Gillheeney’s junior year, the scouts were there to see Jeff Beliveau, who is now pitching at the College of Charleston.
But by his senior year, the scouts returned for Gillheeney, and they liked what they saw.
“[Scouts] told me [my prospects] were pretty good,” Gillheeney said. “And that they were very interested. They speculated that I would get drafted around the second or fourth round.”
Gillheeney though, whose father played Division II college baseball, had different plans. He saw a future that included college and had always put a high priority on his education.
“I told [the scouts] that I really wanted to go to college,” he said. “And unless they threw a very unusual amount of money at me then I was going to go to college.”
Fortunately for N.C. State that didn’t happen, and he made a move to the South — a place Gillheeney said is totally different baseball-wise and climate-wise from the frigid Northeast.
“The weather’s a heck of a lot better,” he said, “and I really enjoy playing with guys that want to win. The competition down here is like night and day. It’s so much more competitive, and that’s the way I play.”
After turning down Georgia, Tennessee and ACC-foe Clemson, Gillheeney decided on Raleigh, and the high school success followed. In his first three appearances — all in relief — he allowed only four total hits over nine shutout innings.
By the third ACC series, Gillheeney found himself in the weekend starting rotation, taking redshirt junior Jeff Stallings’ Sunday spot.
Since then all he’s done is beat Wake Forest, Boston College and take a 4-2 lead into the sixth inning against No. 1 Florida State before being taken out of the game for a no decision. In his 21 2-3 innings so far as a starter, he has given up only seven earned runs and leads all starters with a 2.45 ERA.
“Maybe we didn’t [expect] this, because this has been extra special,” Avent said. “But we expected a lot. He was that doggone good. We knew what we had it in Jimmy Gillheeney.”
For Gillheeney, his success has been somewhat of a surprise, too. He expected to make an early impact, just not this early.
“I never expected to be in the weekend rotation so soon,” he said. “It’s been a trip.”
