Spomer / WBR
With one out in the top of the ninth inning at PRASCO Park, Natale Monastra stepped to the plate with runners on 1st and 3rd and one out. The Jays were clinging to a 9-8 lead over the 2-seed Musketeers and John Sakowski was gearing up to throw his 69th pitch in his three innings of relief. He’d been out on the mound for what seemed like an eternity, surrendering his first hit just one at-bat prior, praying for a double play.
This was a do-or-die moment for both teams, with All-BIG EAST slugger Conor Grammes due up next, and the Jays emptying the tank to win now as opposed to dancing around the rain the following day to try to clinch their first ever BIG EAST tournament title. A win here gets a ring. A loss gives the Musketeers a night to rest and all the momentum in the state of Ohio.
Sakowski dipped into a 3/4 delivery, pushing a fastball a little high and a little tight to Monastra. At the last second, Monastra slapped down a high chopping bunt down the first baseline, the runner on third breaking for home, and Vilches and Sakowski meeting in the middle to make a play.
Spomer / WBR
If you’d told anyone who kept a faithful eye on Bluejay baseball and told them a year ago that John Sakowski was going to be closing out a one-run a game to win a championship, they’d smack you in the jaw berate your optimism. Just one year ago Sakowski finished a sophomore year campaign that featured 12 appearances building to a nausea-inducing ERA of 11.68. In his 12.1 innings pitched he’d given up 16 earned runs, five walks, four dingers, a trio of doubles, while striking out just 8 batters.
His freshman campaign saw similar results as he’d tossed just nine innings. He struck out nine but gave up four earned, walked three, and allowed a dinger. In his most publicly visible outing in mop-up duty against Nebraska, Sakowski gave up a double on a 3-1 count, balked the runner to third, and surrendered the run on a 1-2 base knock to Luke Roskam.
To think that three years later he’d bounce back and become the lock down fireman in the Bluejay bullpen is a testament his coaches. They tinkered with his arm slot, talking him into going the Dave Gerber route by dropping into the deep sea in a golden submarine. It wasn’t a comfortable feel for Sakowski as he lost a potent weapon in the process with Sakowski noting; “The biggest thing from last year was they dropped me down to submarine and I had no way of throwing a slider from down there so it really made it tough to get guys out.”
All it took was a summer trip to Canada for Sakowski to add new parts to his repertoire. If you’ve paid close enough attention to his delivery this season, especially when the bases are empty, you’ll note that Sakowski will do everything in his power to throw the batter off his rhythm. On occasion he’ll pause for a good while after coming set. Sometimes he’ll lengthen his leg kick. Sometimes he’ll quick pitch. Other times he’ll swivel his hips before coming through on his delivery.
“I do different leg kicks, I’ll do a big one and kind of hold it. A kid on my summer ball team did it last year and I was like, “This is good, I should work with that, if it works, it’s not that difficult to do.” Coach always preaches to do long holds and just sitting there when you come set for a while, just wait until the batter gets a little antsy. That’s something coach put in, but the leg kicks was something that I worked on this summer.”
When Sakowski came back home after adding these additional pieces to the mindgame on the mound, his coaches all universally agreed to ditch the submarine and just let John be John. They emboldened the junior from Creighton Prep to do all the things he felt comfortable doing.
[Coach] told me, “just go and do what works for you and figure something out.”
The moment hung in time for what seemed like eons. The bunted ball sitting there, begging to go foul, begging someone to just pick it up. Had Altenberger just fully committed to home and taken a dead sprint towards the plate, I might be telling you a different story. Instead, he hesitated, he was unsure if the ball had gone foul or if it hadn’t touched the ground at all and had been caught. It was one of those things where the mind became paralyzed but the body pushed on.
Then, Sakowski picked up the ball and set his sights on Altenberger, who was halfway down the line but had no momentum either way.
There are those who believe that pitchers are not athletes and shouldn’t try to do athletic things. Then there’s John Sakowski. A true three-sport athlete in high school, Sakowski can dunk a basketball, plow over an unsuspecting football player, and do a flip off a wall. He can do a standing backflip. He’s a freak of nature in terms of athleticism, and that’s something that Coach Servais knew when he showed up on campus.
When I saw John in high school he was an over the top traditional pitcher and then when he got here he was only throwing 84-85 and that doesn’t really work at this level, so I told John, “Hey you’re flexible enough, you’re athletic enough – because he can like, dunk a basketball and do some of those crazy things – I said, “Let’s try this, let’s try to drop it down to create more movement, to create a different angle. We’ve had luck with Dave Gerber, we’ve had luck with a couple other guys, let’s try you at that.” And he did it. And a lot of times when guys try it the first time they get sore, and then you wonder, “Ah we shouldn’t do that.” well, he didn’t get sore.
With an improved ability to get batters out of their comfort zone and after that life-changing visit to Canada, (if you haven’t been you should really give it a shot) Sakowski had a newfound confidence coming into this year, confidence he never really had before. Coach Servais said that when Sakowski first came to Creighton, the pitcher wasn’t sure he could get college players out. Now, after a summer of re-tooling and a vote of confidence from his coaches, Sakowski’s confidence was at an all-time high. It took a couple outings to get that confidence to where it is today, but that’s all part of the process.
I think the confidence was there. When I came in this year, my first couple outings didn’t go so great, so coach talked to me. I had flashbacks from last year, but I told him I felt good this year, I feel confident, but it just hasn’t clicked yet. I think early on when things started clicking it didn’t feel too crazy that I was finally seeing success. In past [outings] I’ve done well, I’ve just mentally struggled sometimes in the spring because the moment got a little big.
Sakowski ran headlong towards Altenberger as Altenberger tried to retreat back to third base, trying to goad Sakowski into making an errant throw or just buy enough time in a rundown to get the runner on second into third. If the Musketeers were playing Seton Hall, then that ball would’ve ended up in the stands with all three runners scoring.
Instead, Sakowski just rambled on towards him, getting Altenberger to run out of the basepath, even extending and applying the tag to assure that his man was out. In the scope of things, it’s simply a the 26th out of a championship. In the finite details though, especially in the throes of a baseball game, it’s a play that takes a lot of presence of mind and an athletic adjustment to get a quick position player out. It’s a play that a pitcher can rarely make, a perfect storm of insanity that just happened to fall Creighton’s way when these things typically don’t.
On the very next pitch Conor Grammes lined a hot shot to first baseman Jake Holton. Holton fielded the ball cleanly, touched first, and ended the game to win the first BIG EAST tournament championship in Bluejay history.