Mahoney Dominant In Emotional Return To Pitching Mound

South Carolina pitcher Jack Mahoney put on a show in his first appearance on the mound in almost two years.

Sometimes, sports journalists have to search far and wide to find a way to come up with a story that provides proper coverage of a particular athlete or sports team, but the beauty of sports is displayed when we're met with rare moments where the story writes itself. 

That's what happened on Sunday afternoon, when right-hander Jack Mahoney, almost two whole years to the day he tore his UCL in his right elbow that brought upon a rigorous long road to recovery, took the mound in front of the Gamecock faithful.

It's something that the junior from Illinois had been looking forward to for a long time, and he admitted in his post-game presser that he couldn't completely contain his nerves the morning preceding his start.

"I definitely woke up [Sunday] morning with some butterflies, [but] once I woke up [Sunday] morning, I was up, there was no going back to bed for sure, I was ready for today," Mahoney stated. "Like a lot of people have been saying, it's been a really long time since I've been out there, and I've just been looking forward to this day for so long now that when it was my time to throw I was ready to go."

Mahoney pitched five and two-thirds innings, giving up just five hits, striking out nine batters, and didn't walk a single Riverhawk player. Based on head baseball coach Mark Kingston's remarks, this performance started and ended with his fastball.

"I would say the thing that I was most pleased with was his command of his fastball on the glove-side. It was as good as I've seen, hitting the bottom corner of that strike zone, and with that sink at that velocity, it's just really hard to square up."

When he left in the sixth inning, Mahoney got a rousing ovation from everyone in Founders Park, creating an internal flood of emotions as he went to the dugout.

"It was all worth it, I knew there was gonna be a moment when I was working in the dark that I was like 'Alright, you did the right thing,'" Mahoney recalled. "I caught a glimpse of my mom and dad, and that was a really neat moment for me, but I think the coolest moment for me was kinda looking out and seeing all my teammates and my best friends coming to jump on me. I'll never forget that moment."

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