There is no place like home and Jackson Gowan found a college home playing Division I baseball at Queens University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people at Queens when I was on my visit there the coaches were really loving and they wanted me, so I just felt that kind of sense of home, and I knew that I was only going to be like 50 minutes away from home,\u201d Gowan said.<\/p>\n
The former Chase High product initially went to Division II Mars Hill out of high school and was comfortable, but not satisfied.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a pretty good transition because one of my best friends growing up helped me honestly, because we roomed together at Mars Hill and played baseball. I went to Mars Hill for a semester, and then I went to Cleveland Community College, because I wanted to see if I could go somewhere better and so I thought going (to junior college) would be fun and it has all worked out so far, and now I\u2019m here,\u201d Gowan said.<\/p>\n
The move to play junior college ball with the Yetis was pivotal both for the development of his game and for his personal growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn high school,I didn\u2019t really throw hard, and then I got to (junior college) and I had some pretty good coaches and they helped me learn how to win, compete, play as a team, help others, and really just grow into a better person,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Since moving to Queens he has noticed that more adjustments had to be made.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot walking as many people and just attacking, because hitting is hard, so the hitters are definitely better, but just throwing strikes is such a key to having some success and being able to give my team a chance to win,\u201d the current Royals pitcher commented.<\/p>\n
Those adjustments have earned Gowan the No. 3 starter role at Queens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started our first four weekends of the year, and then we had a guy get hurt, and so I came back to starting, and I\u2019ve just been going out there and give my team the best chance to win, and try to help them because we need as many wins as you can to try to play into the postseason,\u201d Gowan remarked. \u201cJust learning from our other starters, we have a starter who has been here for a while, and I\u2019ve learned that from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his last start against Atlantic Sun conference foe Stetson University, Gowan threw three innings of shutout baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast Thursday I hurt my back a little, and so I knew I might not be able to go as long as I can, and I just did the best with what I could, and threw strikes. At their field the wind blows in really hard, so it is hard to give up any hits that do a lot of damage, so I just threw strikes and let my defense do the dirty work for me,\u201d Gowan commented.<\/p>\n
Still, Gowan views his time playing for Chase and Legion ball in Rutherford County as foundational to where he is now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely would not be here without any of those people, Rutherford County has been everything to me and I love it. My family and friends I grew up with always pushed me to be better, so really what it is for me,\u201d Gowan reflected. \u201cLegion was always a blast, just playing in the summer with your high school friends one last time, and that was just always really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the future, Gowan has both short and long term goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor this year my goal is to make the A-Sun tournament, go to a regional and maybe even go even farther. We\u2019ve been playing really good lately, so that\u2019s my main goal for this year,\u201d Gowan said. \u201cFor next year, it would be to get drafted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is no place like home and Jackson Gowan found a college home playing Division I baseball at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[38283,9,24,63,122,124,123,319],"class_list":["post-201015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-archives","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}