The Daily Campus

Issue date: 5/6/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Ryan Sayers Brendan McGinn was one of the most successful mid-week starters the Huskies had this year.

It is both ironic and inconvenient how sometimes even the brightest of days can quickly have a series of dark and ominous clouds roll in on it.
One nagging injury can lead to another serious one for many baseball pitchers.
For the former winner of the Hartford Courant's 'Best of the Best' award for pitching in high school, Brendan McGinn had what looked like the most promising of careers in front of him. His senior season in high school saw him go 11-1 with a 0.79 ERA and 142 strikeouts. After a rocky freshman season at UConn, McGinn found himself in the midst of a solid sophomore effort and was beginning to get adjusted to baseball at the collegiate level when the injury bugs began to bite.
Multiple arm injures shut McGinn down and forced him to redshirt his junior year.
"Rehabbing was real tough. The whole time I'm doing it, I'm thinking 'I'm not even guaranteed to be back pitching,'" McGinn said. "It took a lot to get on the mound and forget the pain and just throw strikes."
Over work may have been the cause of the pain for McGinn. He was relied upon heavily in high school and spent two seasons playing summer baseball in the North Woods league in Minnesota. All those pitches added up in a very negative equation for McGinn.
"He always wants the ball and never says no with it," said head coach Jim Penders.
The mid-week starter role is not the most hallowed in all of college baseball, as teams typically throw their top three guys in the weekend conference match-ups. Penders has admitted that McGinn is more than deserving of a spot in the weekend rotation, but he has bounced back his senior year to thrive in the mid-week role.
Asking someone with such a decorated career coming into college to accept the possibility that in his senior season he may not be one of the top three starters on the team would be tough for most. However, McGinn is still way ahead of where many thought he would currently be.
"If he went to a doctor right now they would probably say, 'Hey, you shouldn't be pitching,'" Penders said. "But this is probably his last go around and he wants to give it everything he's got. I haven't had enough to smile about this year, but watching him has been one of the real bright sides of the season."

Continued...

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