BANGOR, Maine — Nick Mayo made a big sporting choice last spring.
Rather than rejoin the Messalonskee High School baseball team in its quest to win a third consecutive Eastern Maine Class A championship, the 6-foot-8-inch pitcher opted to focus his athletic attention on AAU basketball.
It turned out to be a brilliant personal move. Mayo emerged as one of the state’s top Division I college prospects of recent vintage while leading the Maine Athletic Club 17-and-under team to an 11th-place finish at last summer’s AAU 11th-Grade National Championship Tournament at Louisville, Kentucky.
That effort earned the 17-year-old from Belgrade nine Division I scholarship offers, from which Mayo chose to continue his basketball career and studies at Eastern Kentucky University beginning this fall.
But now it’s back to baseball one last time before Mayo turns to basketball full time, and despite not having pitched since his sophomore year of high school, the imposing righthander is poised to play a significant role as Messalonskee attempts to avenge its 6-3 loss to eventual state champion Bangor in the 2014 regional final.
Mayo has yet to allow an earned run in two starts covering nine innings. He yielded three hits and three unearned runs over five innings Tuesday as the Eagles built an early lead and held on to improve their record to 6-0 with an 8-6 victory over Bangor at Mansfield Stadium.
“The last time he pitched was against Lawrence and it was about 30 degrees outside so this was a bit different from that,” said Messalonskee baseball and basketball coach Pete McLaughlin of the 70-degree weather.
“He had some spots where he could have improved on today, but for the first four innings he was pretty dynamite and in the fifth inning errors allowed them to extend him a little bit. He was around 60 pitches when we had two errors back to back and that extended it out to 70-something so that ended the day for him. But I’m very happy with him.”
Mayo threw 78 pitches against the Rams, 49 for strikes, before leaving the contest with the Eagles holding an 8-3 lead.
“I wasn’t tired,” he said. “The game plan was to throw around 75 pitches so I knew when I got there I was coming out the next inning.”
That attention to pitch count has been a constant during Mayo’s comeback after nearly two years without working from the mound in a competitive setting.
“I just started from pitchers and catchers [practices] the week before tryouts really working on the mechanics and fundamentals,” said Mayo. “As the season keeps going I just keep working on my location. That’s been one of the biggest things, along with getting my curveball back and putting some power on my fastball.”
“[Tuesday] I got to throw more pitches and more innings. I’m starting to test my arm more to see where it’s at and what I can do, so this was a good day.”
The early stages of Mayo’s return to preseason baseball practices did include an intrusion of sorts from basketball when he learned that Jeff Neubauer, the head coach who successfully recruited him to Eastern Kentucky, was leaving before they shared a single practice.
“At first I was kind of shocked and surprised,” said Mayo, a finalist for the state’s Mr. Basketball award, the Gatorade Maine Player of the Year and a Bangor Daily News All-Maine first-team honoree last winter after leading Messalonskee to the Eastern A semifinals.
“This had never happened to me before in my life or to anyone in my family so it was a learning process.”
But upon modest reflection, Mayo understood Neubauer’s decision to leave EKU after 10 seasons for a similar post at Fordham University.
“He had a great opportunity for him and his family to go to Fordham and make a career there, it’s just part of the business,” Mayo said. “It happens.”
Any angst about Mayo’s collegiate future was allayed quickly as EKU took less than two weeks before hiring former Louisville assistant Dan McHale as Neubauer’s replacement.
All the while Mayo remained in contact with current Eastern Kentucky players, and subsequent phone calls from McHale were followed up with a visit to Maine by the Colonels’ new head coach and one of his assistants to meet Mayo face-to-face approximately two weeks after he got the job.
“Being able to communicate and interact with players who are at Eastern Kentucky and having the coaches come up here and being able to talk to them, that helped,” said Mayo. “Being able to meet them and talk about my future went really well.
“We talked a lot about what he expects from me and his philosophies and what he wants me to do and just looking forward to the future at EKU. I’m excited about the new coach and everything that’s happening there.”
After high school graduation or the end of baseball season — whichever comes last — Mayo plans to head to the EKU campus in Richmond, Kentucky, to take summer courses and participate in offseason workouts.
“That will be really good,” he said, “because I’ll be able to play with the players that are already there and be with coach and just get familiar with everything.”
