June 28, 2010

Championship Series Game 1 Recap: South Carolina 7, UCLA 1

Box Score

UCLA Stumbles from Start

Game Notes

CWS Scores and Game Stories

College World Series Capsules

Shaping Up Benefits Cooper

By Sean Ryan

CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder

(Photos by Sean Ryan)

OMAHA, Neb. – Midway through last season, South Carolina pitching coach Mark Calvi sat Blake Cooper (right with Erin Andrews) down and had a heart-to-heart with his junior pitcher.

Cooper had hit the wall. Life on the road and too many fast food delicacies were starting to take their toll. Cooper was gaining weight and losing his edge.

“It’s hard on the road to stay in the shape in the middle of the year that you were to start the year,” Calvi said. “It was happening gradually. It got to the point that he wasn’t able to make pitches, he wasn’t as efficient.”

So Calvi told Cooper like it was.

“Coach Calvi has been a mentor to me,” Cooper said Monday night after baffling UCLA for eight-plus innings in the Gamecocks’ 7-1 win to open the College World Series best-of-three championship. “He told me, you’re going to do this.”

Starting after that conversation, Cooper traded fast food for grilled chicken and fish. He picked up his conditioning. And he saw results. Calvi said that while most pitchers are losing steam at the end of the year, Cooper was gaining strength and pitching his best down the stretch.

Summer arrived, and Cooper worked harder.

“The kid was running stadium stairs with a 30, 40-pound weight vest on in 100 degree heat,” Calvi said. Other teammates joined Cooper, but “he was the ringleader. He was the one who had guys out with him.”

Cooper said he’d spend some three or four hours a day at the field working out.

“It was 100 degrees, it had to be because I was sweating to death out there,” Cooper said. “I guess it was tough for me this summer, but I had strong determination and I was able to get through it and now I’m seeing it’s paid off.”

In a big way.

Cooper improved to 13-2 by completely shutting down the Bruins – three hits, one earned run, one walk and 10 strikeouts in eight-plus innings. He mixed a tumbling change up with a very good slider to compensate for an upper 80s fastball that normally sits in the low 90s but was a little off with Cooper throwing on three days’ rest.

And he did it against one of the best pitchers in the country – again.

Cooper has squared off against first-round picks Drew Pomeranz (Ole Miss) and Asher Wojciechowski (The Citadel), second-round pick Drew Smyly (Arkansas), fourth-round pick Bryan Morgado (Tennessee) and projected first-rounder Sonny Gray (Vanderbilt) this season. Cooper – a 12th round pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks this year – has beaten every one of them.

Monday night, he got the best of former first-rounder Gerrit Cole.

“To play the game at this level and when you’re 5-9, you’ve got to have a chip on your shoulder,” Calvi said. “And he does, the kid has a chip on his shoulder.

“I’ve seen so many 6-foot-4 guys who are soft. They take what they have for granted. Blake Cooper doesn’t take what he has for granted. He pitches with an edge. He pitches with an ‘I’ll-show-you’ attitude. And that’s exactly what he’s done all year.”

It may help that Cooper hails from tiny Neeses, S.C., a one-stoplight town about an hour south of Columbia. He likes to fish and hunt. And he clearly welcomes the challenge that comes with being the Friday night ace.

“I guess it helps me out because I know I’ve got to go out and throw zeroes against them,” he said.

Cooper did that again Monday night and has put the Gamecocks in good shape to win their first national title.

Working on his own shape may have made all the difference.