Lights out. It’s what you can expect when you see Senior Garrett Hutson take the mound for the Colorado Mesa University baseball team. Hutson has been nothing but prime in his first three appearances on the mound as a Maverick.
“Baseball has meant everything. I mean if it wasn’t for baseball I probably never would have been in college honestly. I’m the first one in my family to be in college and that is all because of baseball. So that is definitely big.” Hutson said.
Hutson started his college baseball career in Houston, Texas where he played at San Jacinto Community College. But that may have not always been the plan.
Before JUCO, the El Dorado native attended St. Thomas Aquinas where he played high school ball and was named an All-State Selection and the 2014 Perfect-Game All American. Hutson played his junior at Abilene Christian as a relief pitcher. He racked up a 4-1 record and 35 strikeouts in his 11 appearances. Ever since he showed up to CMU, he already has 27 strikeouts and a 1.65 era in his four appearances.
“Before I decided to go the JUCO route, I was committed to Oklahoma State out of high school,” Hutson said. “ Don’t take anything for granted no matter what comes at you and just always stay true to yourself and don’t try to fit in cause I mean five years ago I would try to fit in a little bit and now I know that doesn’t really matter in the long run.”
It was in Houston when he decided that he really just wanted to focus on pitching.
“I did both, hitting and pitching, until after my freshman year of college and I was always just looked at more as a pitcher because I could throw harder, making my hitting kind of just underplayed; because of that I decided to just become a pitcher,” Hutson said.
He then decided to go back to where everything started and played his sophomore season at Cowley County College. Hutson did not go back to Kansas to play baseball in the cornfields of his home state–he went back for another reason.
“I went back home so I could try and play with my brother Gavin cause he also plays and he’s just a year younger than me. He went to Cowley County so I went there to try to play with him my sophomore year.” Hutson said.
Then another year at Abilene Christian, Hutson would soon find himself at CMU.
Suplizio field is not new territory for the senior pitcher. Hutson has played in Grand Junction during the JUCO World Series his freshman and sophomore seasons. He took that into consideration when it was time to become a Maverick himself.
“Part of the reason I wanted to come here was that I had been here a couple of years and I really liked the city and their love for baseball so I knew that it would be fun. It helps that they are really good every year too. I wanted to be on a winning team because the team I was on last year wasn’t good at all so it made baseball not so fun.” Hutson said.
Opening weekend was a great weekend for CMU, but Hutson had a great home debut as a starting pitcher against Montana State-Billings. He threw 100 pitches over 5.2 innings with ten strikeouts while only allowing four runs off of four hits.
“At first I did not know if I was going to be a starter or closer but I had a pretty good idea I was going to be one of those,” Hutson said. “For me, I’ve started the last two years of college but my freshman year I was a reliever until the end of the year. I’ve done a little bit of everything.”
The start Hutson had in California made him get recognized for all the hard work he puts in when he was named Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) Pitcher of the Week back on Feb. 26. He also received the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association South Central Region Pitcher of the Week when he went a full seven innings throwing 85 pitches. Hutson only allowed one hit and struck out eleven batters against Fresno Pacific on Feb. 22.
CMU’s next series will be against Regis University in a four-game starting on March 8.
