It’s All Come Together for Davidson
May 28, 2006

The stat sheet from Sunday’s Ashland-Franklin Pierce baseball game at the NCAA Division II championships in Montgomery, AL, will show that Ashland starter Josh Davidson pitched 7.1 innings. By rule, that’s not a complete game.

Try telling that to anyone who watched the game, on either side of the field. This was a complete game by every definition except by the numbers.

“He was in it for the long haul,” said Frankin Pierce head coach Jayson King. “You could tell that from the beginning. He did what he had to do today.”

What Davidson did was shut down a Franklin Pierce team that was hitting .321. The Ravens have been to the NCAA Championships in Montgomery two times in four years. This wasn’t a band of postseason novices Davidson was pulling apart. It was a well-seasoned team that includes shortstop Garrett Olson, an All-America who Baseball America ranks as the second best Division II player in the country.

Davidson allowed a leadoff homer to Olson and was touched for three runs and six hits over the first four innings. But in the fifth through the seventh inning, he allowed no runs on one hit. The junior’s final line read four runs, all earned, on eight hits with three walks and three strikeouts.

“He was a great pitcher,” said Olson. “If he got beat with something, he didn’t try to stay with it. He pitched different guys different ways. He got to where he was using his changeup and his slider. I never saw a fastball again after that (homer).”

That’s a sign that Davidson is a real complete pitcher. He’s now 14-5. That win total ties Ryan Hartzell (2002) for the second highest single-season victory total in AU history. Davidson’s career record is 30-11. He’s tied for third in career wins at AU with Jamie Detillion. The leaders are Hartzell and Mark Smithberger with 37 apiece.

Davidson has thrown 110.1 innings this season – no AU pitcher has ever thrown more in a season. In addition to being Ashland’s top starter, he’s tied for the team lead in saves (4). How’s that for a complete pitcher?

“It means quite a bit to me,” said Davidson, when asked about where he stands in the school record book. “I’m up there with a lot of good pitchers.”

Davidson’s been more than good in his last two appearances. He was the most valuable player at the regional tournament where he came in from the bullpen and shut down Grand Valley State, nailing down a 2-1 win that sent the Eagles to Alabama for the NCAA Championships. Now, at those Championships, he gives the Eagles a stellar performance in their opening game.

“They are an aggressive hitting team and we changed speeds,” noted pitching coach Drew Patton, when asked about Franklin Pierce. “He changed speeds and he hit his spots. I though his changeup was his best pitch today. Normally it’s his curve.”

Normally, a day like Sunday would wear down a pitcher. Davidson got his second wind in the middle innings. That was something Patton predicted would happen.

“My arm’s fine,” laughed Davidson, who gets that question now after every appearance. “It (heat) makes it feel amazing down here. It feels a lot easier to get loose. Up north, it takes longer to warm up.”

As that statement shows, arm tightness wasn’t the reason his first pitch Sunday sailed out of the park. Some pitchers would have melted if that had happened to them in a game of this magnitude. Davidson shrugged it off and went back to work.

“Coming in, I didn’t know a whole lot about them,” Davidson said of the Ravens. “But every team here is a good hitting team, they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t a good hitting team. He (Olson) hit a real good pitch.”

After that, Davidson delivered plenty more “real good pitches.” Most of them weren’t hit. That’s been the case for most of this year. A complete year by one of the most complete pitchers in school history.