Coulter, Bears Hitting On All Cylinders

GREENVILLE, S.C.—Kyle Lewis isn’t the kind of hitter to go up to the plate in attack mode. He waits for his pitch. Other teams know this, know that he’s going to be taking early.

Thing is, Lewis knows it too. When Furman’s Matthew Quarles tried to get one over with his first pitch to Lewis on Thursday afternoon, Lewis pounced and lofted the ball down the right field line, curling it around the foul pole for an opposite field home run, his 19th of the season.

“The way I hit in my approach, 90 percent of the time I’m going to take the first pitch,” Lewis said. “I’m usually always taking. And so I kind of wanted to just ambush him and I felt like they would try to get ahead. Most teams pick up on that kind of thing, so every once in awhile I may cut it loose first pitch … I just felt like sometimes you’ve got to switch it up if you understand what they’re trying to do to you.”

Lewis’ two-run shot staked the top-seeded Bears to a first-inning lead in their winners’ bracket game at the Southern Conference tournament. It was also all Kevin Coulter needed. The freshman righthander went out and threw the first complete game of his career—the first by any Mercer pitcher this season—in his first postseason start to push the Bears to a 6-1 win and the crucial 2-0 start in the tournament. They earn a day off Friday, and they’re potentially just two wins away from the title.

Ironically, Coulter was following the example set by a guy in the opposing dugout, Paladins ace Will Gaddis. Coulter and the Bears watched Gaddis finish a four-hit shutout to beat East Tennessee State the previous day as they waited for their own game. Bears assistant coach Brent Shade made sure Coulter took notice.

“Talking about the Furman guy, Gaddis, he said, ‘Hey, that’s what the guys do. If you want to be No. 1, you’ve got to come out here and throw nine in the tournament. Do it when it’s big time,’ “ Coulter said.

Coulter’s not one to throw balls by hitters. He’s going to pitch to contact, working off a running two-seam fastball along with a slider and changeup. What he also does is pound the strike zone. Relentlessly.

Coulter retired the side on seven pitches in the top of the first, and he finished the game in a cooly efficient 99. He had only one strikeout, which came in the second inning, but he also gave out only one free pass, the ninth time in 16 starts he’s allowed one walk or less. Coulter was essentially just picking up where he left off against UNC Greensboro in his last regular season start, a game in which he went eight innings without any strikeouts, all of which is perfectly fine with him.

“I’m a freshman, so hopefully I’m going to continue to have better stuff as it goes on,” Coulter said, “but I just know I’ve got eight other guys behind me that just made tremendous plays. … I’m just trusting my stuff and trusting my defense. I think that’s crucial. We preach here to just not walk people. If you don’t walk people, you make them hurt you.”

Coulter’s teammates were asking him during the bottom of the eighth whether he’d be back out to finish. “You’ve got the ninth?,” they said. The answer was a resounding yes, as Coulter retired the Paladins in order in the top of the ninth, doing it on 12 pitches—a long inning by his standards—before getting mobbed on the mound.

“First and foremost, his mound presence is unbelievable,” head coach Craig Gibson said. “He’s got a great confidence level. He came from a great high school program. He did a lot of winning there at Buford (Ga.) High School. We’ve leaned on him from as soon as he got on campus. … We moved him up to Saturdays the last few weeks, and the maturity level, he’s not a freshman. To go out in this league and to win eight ballgames, first complete game of the year, it was really special.”

The Bears may be best known for Lewis and their explosive offense, but the first thing Gibson says his team prides itself on is its pitching and defense. They’ve backed that up over the first days at Fluor Field, allowing just two runs combined in wins against the Citadel and Furman, and their infield turned a pair of slick double plays Thursday to help Coulter keep rolling.

Mercer is the defending champion of this event, after all, and after winning seven straight series at the end of the year to claim the SoCon regular season title, the Bears look like they’re hitting that stride once more. With that comes no shortage of confidence.

“Going into the game, we felt like we had the best team,” Lewis said. “Coming out here today, playing a solid nine innings really just reinforces that. We’re through the roof right now. We feel like we have the best team and we have all the opportunities in the world to repeat as champions. I think that if we just continue to stay solid and play solid baseball, stay within ourselves, we should definitely have a good shot moving forward.”