Every baseball player looks forward to opening day, but for Jack Mahoney, it’s different. The junior right hander had Tommy John surgery to repair his right elbow which was injured in May of his freshman season and wasn’t able to pitch all of last year, although he is a talented enough athlete that he did hit and play in the field some for South Carolina in 2022. Now fully healthy and armed with multiple pitches, including a fastball that head coach Mark Kingston said has been clocked at 96 miles per hour, Mahoney can’t wait for his first chance on the mound in 2023.
“The arm feels good,” Mahoney said. “It’s just nice to be strong and healthy. Obviously, it has been a while since I’ve been out there in front of everyone. It has been refreshing throwing in the scrimmages.
“Looking back on it now, it was kind of frustrating to have the freshman year that I had and then have to take my medicine with the injury. We took our time with the recovery. Sitting out (from pitching) last year and watching how last year went and wanting to be out there with the guys was really frustrating. It was hard to watch. I tried to be good teammate and know that my time was coming.”
Mahoney earned Perfect Game Freshman All-America- Second Team honors in 2021 after going 3-0 with a 1.62 earned run average and 39 strikeouts in 33.1 innings before the injury sideline him in May. Nearly two years later, Mahoney is back where he wants to be, physically and mentally, and now he wants to help get the Gamecocks where they need to be after injuries plagued the pitching staff last year, contributing to the program missing the postseason.
“I think every pitch in my repertoire has improved,” Mahoney said. “The surgery helped me focus on things that I never got to focus on before. All my pitches have more life to them. My fastball is good. It’s been up in the mid-90s. It has my good movement again, so it feels good. I look more like a pitcher on the mound. When I was younger, I just got up there and threw it. We’ve tweaked my mechanics, and I’m throwing more strikes. I’m using my body in a bit of a different way.
“A year like last year is so foreign to this program. That doesn’t happen. It’s not acceptable here. We know that, and the coaches know that. This fall has been about getting back to who we are and playing Gamecock baseball the right way. We’ve got the pieces, and we’ve got the arms.”
Mahoney will be in the mix in competing…
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