College baseball: Gouge has been huge for Catawba

By Mike London

Salisbury Post

SALISBURY — Catawba College junior Casey Gouge was recently named as the top scholar for South Atlantic Conference baseball.

Gouge, a left-handed pitcher from West Rowan, carries a 3.9 GPA in sports management, and he’s pleased that for the first time in his college career his ERA is lower than his GPA.

The photo of Gouge used by the SAC in the story about his academic honor — officially it’s known as the SAC Baseball Wealth Enhancement Group Elite 23 Award — shows him wearing thick goggles and makes him look like someone who would need binoculars in order to see home plate. He looks a bit like Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn from the Major League movies.

Gouge laughs about the photo and wants to assure everyone that his eyesight is just fine.

“We were just having some fun on media day with those glasses,” Gouge said. “We’ve got some funny guys. We have a lot of fun. It’s fun playing baseball for Catawba.”

Winning is fun, and Catawba is winning often — 45-12 entering Super Regional action against Lenoir-Rhyne that starts Thursday night.

It’s more fun for Gouge now than it used to be.

He was really good in high school, All-State as a two-way player for the WR Falcons. He had accepted a D-I offer before having second thoughts and opting to stay home to play for coach Jim Gantt and the Indians.

But SAC hitters were not impressed by Gouge’s high school press clippings. During his freshman year, Gouge’s infielders became an endangered species from all the line drives being hit. Gantt never lost faith in the southpaw because he had seen what Gouge could do in American Legion ball, so Gouge got to pitch in 19 games. He was 1-5 with a 7.32 ERA. If he’d been a pro, he would have been released.

No one needed to yell at Gouge and inform him he had not done the job the team had hoped he would do. Gouge knew it better than anyone. Gouge is accountable. He acknowledged his struggles. He didn’t look for someone else to blame.

“That freshman year, I just got beat up by college hitters,” Gouge said. “I wasn’t strong enough and I wasn’t in good enough shape. I made a promise to my teammates and my coaches that I was going to do everything in my power to be better for them.”

Physically, Gouge was a different person his sophomore season. He was about 25 pounds heavier, all of it muscle.

The process started to work for him. All those lifting sessions and all those bullpen sessions and all those mental sessions with pitching coach Greg Brown got him back on track toward being a good college pitcher. The final numbers his sophomore year still weren’t all he wanted them to be, but the results were a vast improvement — 6-2 with a 4.44 ERA. He took the ball 25 times and made 20 starts for a team that was good enough to play in the Division II National Championships.

“Especially in the second half of the year, things were coming together for me,” Gouge said. “Coach Gantt reminds us a lot that our starting pitcher can’t win a ball game himself, so his job is to give his team a chance to win it. I had confidence that I could give us a chance whenever I went out there. I could keep us in the game. I attacked the strike zone more than I did as a freshman. I threw more strikes. I gave our defense a chance to help.”

Gouge’s best performances came late in the season, as he took charge of the do-or-die regional championship game against Young Harris and steamrolled Southern New Hampshire for seven shutout innings in a matchup in the Division II National Championships. Southern New Hampshire didn’t get a hit until the fifth.

“Coach Gantt always tells us that no matter how big a game is, the game doesn’t know how big it is,” Gouge explained. “One of the things I think I can do well is that when I go out to the mound, it’s just another game to me, like any other, and I’ve got to execute pitches the same way. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Tuesday non-conference game, the regional final or the World Series. I’ve got to be who I am.”

Gouge was encouraged by his sophomore year, especially the fantastic finish, but not satisfied. He has continued to put in a high volume of work this season, and he’s continued to get better. He was Southeast Region Pitcher of the Week after a mighty effort against a strong Carson-Newman team.

In 17 starts, Gouge has repeated last season’s 6-2 record, but the ERA is down to 3.53. He was third team All-SAC.

“The best thing about Casey is that he is the same guy every day, on and off the field,” Catawba shortstop Nathan Chrismon said. “He is steady. He is dependable. He is solid. The guys love playing behind him because we know he’s going to compete every time he takes the mound. He understands exactly what his strengths are, and he’s going to pitch to those strengths.”

Gouge was a good hitter in high school and Legion ball. A lot of athletes hope to be two-way guys in college, but Gouge is thrilled to be doing what he’s doing.

He’s had one at-bat in college ball in three seasons, and he figures that was one too many.

“I was a pretty decent hitter in high school and Legion, but when I saw the kind of arms you consistently face in college, I was more than happy to be just a pitcher,” Gouge said with a laugh. “If I was still trying to be a hitter, there’s no way I’d be able to put in the work it takes at this level to have success as a pitcher.”

Gouge’s success on the field has carried over off the field as a true scholar-athlete.

“There’s no secret to making good grades — it’s just time management and hard work,” Gouge said. “My girlfriend (Catawba volleyball player Kelcie Love) helps me out a lot, and I’ve always had the help of my family, the team and the school.”

Gouge will likely pitch Friday in the second game of the Super Regional against Lenoir-Rhyne at 6 p.n. at Newman Park, after All-America Payne Stolsworth, another former Falcon, pitches the opening game.

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