Then there are others, like Marlowe Iorio.
Iorio, a right-handed pitcher who tore elbow ligaments before his senior year in high school, spent last season redshirting as a freshman at North Carolina-Greensboro. His rehabilitation was hindered by anxiety about reinjuring his elbow, a bout with the coronavirus and wondering how he would fit in on a staff with so many pitchers four and five years older.
“I thought about quitting,” said Iorio, who came to Gaston because he trusted Doty, who had recruited him in high school. “My last start was my junior year in high school, and I just felt like baseball wasn’t a part of me.”
Doty encouraged him to push through the soreness to rebuild his arm strength and tinkered with his mechanics. The pitcher’s fastball has climbed to 91 miles per hour — a velocity that, Doty said, would surely make Iorio attractive to Division I coaches, who are always looking for arms.
But Iorio, who grew up in Maplewood, N.J., before moving to Chapel Hill, N.C., in high school, isn’t sure what is next. He has been admitted academically to North Carolina and is interested in studying sports science, and may decide to focus on academics. But he has a lot to cherish about this year: being healthy, productive, part of a winning team and doing it with teammates he likes.