Jake Matthys was a talented but unheralded righthanded pitcher at Spring Lake Park — good enough to twice be named all-conference, but not dominant enough to crack the 2012 Star Tribune All-Metro list (first or second team).

He received what he described as lukewarm interest from the Gophers, but Kansas State saw him pitch for his winter team and took a chance with a scholarship offer. The Wildcats were an underdog story themselves, having not won a conference title in the Big 12 or its predecessor, the Big Eight, in eight decades.

That is, of course, until this season when K-State took the conference title — with Matthys playing a starring role. The true freshman and his team not only did that, but also advanced to the NCAA Super Regional. Matthys pitched two shutout innings to close out a 4-3 victory over Arkansas to clinch the berth.

“That was one of the best baseball feelings I’ve ever had. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life,” Matthys said. “Everyone was going nuts, and it was in front of our home fans.”

With a series victory in the best 2-of-3 at Oregon State — starting Saturday, all games on ESPNU — the Wildcats would advance to the College World Series.

That save was of many highlights for Matthys, who was named to the freshman All-America team, as announced by Collegiate Baseball, on Wednesday. With an 8-1 record, a 1.96 ERA and nine saves, he was also named Big 12 Freshman of the Year. He’s pitched in 32 games (all in relief) this season, a Kansas State record. He has only 38 strikeouts in 55 innings, but with just 41 hits and eight walks allowed he has been tough to score against.

“I work both sides of the plate with my fastball,” Matthys said, “and it has a lot of run on it — especially my two-seam fastball to a righty. It runs in on the hands and is tough to hit, and then I come back with a slider.”

He didn’t imagine he would pitch this much so early in his career, but at this point in the season he certainly doesn’t want to stop.

“I feel like we can taste it,” Matthys said of a possible College World Series berth. “We’re the underdogs up there [at Oregon State], but we’ve been the underdogs all year so we feed on that.”

 

Michael Rand