NSU’s Fierce Competitor

In today’s world of modern baseball, pitching potential is measured in 97 mph heaters, sharp breaking balls and cruel looking hairdos.

Nicholls State senior pitcher Seth Webster has none of the above.

But that doesn’t mean the Colonels’ pitcher doesn’t have game.

With just a low-to-mid-80s fastball and pinpoint control on his breaking ball, the 6-foot, 5-inch righty is posting his second-straight dominant season for Nicholls.

Already the Preseason Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year, Webster has done his best in recent weeks to show he deserved the honor, having tossed three complete games in eight starts with a 5-2 record and a tidy 3.34 ERA.

“He’s on fire. He’s been awesome. And I’m not at all surprised by it,” Colonels coach Seth Thibodeaux said nonchalantly about his pitcher. “He’s been really good and even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, he still gives us a chance to win the game. That’s who Seth is. He’s just a great pitcher, a great kid and he’s so vital to our program.”

“Things have been going pretty well, I guess you can say,” Webster says with a wry smile. “I started off slow a little bit, but I kept my composure and things have turned around.”

Watch Webster get off the bus and it could be a bit puzzling as to why he has success.

He’s tall, but lanky within his slender, 220-pound frame.

Then when one sees his first couple warm-up tosses, the mystery becomes even harder to solve.

Webster isn’t a flame thrower, instead relying upon a mixture of control and finesse to throw the right pitches to the right hitters to record outs.

“His best pitch is the fastball,” Colonels pitching coach Rudy Darrow said. “He’s got some deception to it. He’s got a little head movement and he stays back and hides the baseball really well. And he always keeps it down, so that’s his best pitch. But he’s got a changeup and two breaking balls – a slider and a curveball – and he can throw both for strikes whenever he wants. It really keeps hitters off balance because he has four pitches he can throw for strikes.”

It sounds unrealistic – and for most who attempt that style, it is.

But Webster pulls it off with style.

“He and I joke around, because people tell us, ‘What do you mean by 84 [mph]?’” fellow senior starter Patrick Shreve said. “That’s he and I’s speed right there. He just hits his spots. When you throw 84 like both he and I do, it all comes down to, ‘Do you hit your spots?’ In Seth’s case, he does more often than not.”

“He’s a location guy,” Thibodeaux said. “It’s all location, location, location. Everything is down in the zone. His fastball has a little sink to righties and he’s got a good changeup to lefties.

“He’s the Greg Maddux of the Southland Conference. He can mix it up. He can change it up. He can move the ball, speed it up and slow it down. He’s a master at making it look like it’s coming a lot harder than it actually is or a lot slower than it actually is.”

So doing things the unconventional way – how does Webster pull that off without a hitch?

That’s simple – hard work and sheer disdain for losing.

The Colonels’ pitcher possesses a fierce competitive edge, which he and his coaches and teammates believe set him above the rest of the pitchers in the Southland Conference.

Thibodeaux and teammates tout that even away from baseball, Webster is always ripe for a challenge and always willing to test his luck in the name of being the best at a given craft.

“It all comes back to that competitiveness with Seth,” Darrow said. “Seth really wants it. It really burns inside his gut. That’s a big piece of what makes him who he is – that drive to beat whatever is up against him.”

“That’s in everything,” fellow rotation pitcher Mike Wiscarver said. “That’s all the way from ping pong in the locker room to pitching on Friday nights in the Southland Conference. He’s competitive at everything that he does.”

Webster can’t tell you where his competitive streak comes from, but he definitely is aware that it’s there.

He said that from an early age, he developed that “uncontrollable desire to be the best that I can be”.

“I really have no idea where that comes from,” Webster said. “My dad was always a real competitive guy and I was always around him. My mom was an athlete, as well, and she’s pretty competitive, herself. I guess when you’re raised by people who both played sports and who both believe in competition, this is what happens.”

Maybe a little bit of the extra burn comes because of the events that have transpired throughout the pitcher’s college career.

Things are going smooth for Webster now – but that wasn’t always the case.

After his freshman season, Webster said he noticed a little twitch in his right arm.

He thought nothing of it and continued to go about his business.

By the early portion of the preseason of his sophomore season, that twitch became more a pull.

No more than a few days into the season, that pull became all-out numbness.

“My arm was just done,” Webster said.

The pitcher was diagnosed a slight tear in his labrum and bicep – an injury doctors estimated would allow the pitcher to return in four-to-six weeks.

Several months of patient waiting, one major surgery and countless more months of rehab later, Webster ended up missing two full seasons of action.

“That was a pretty tough time for me,” Webster said. “Sitting and waiting, not knowing when, if ever, I’d return. That was difficult on me.”

But instead of pouting his way into retirement, Thibodeaux said Webster used his time on the shelf to become a better pitcher.

The coach touts that Webster studied hitter tendencies to better learn what pitches to throw in certain situations.

Webster also added that because the injury sapped a few miles per hour off his pitches, he was forced to add a slider to his repertoire, while also placing a greater emphasis on location – which has sparked his two-year run.

“Sitting out those two years, you gain a new perspective on things,” Webster said. “I was kind of like a coach, not in the sense of telling people what to do. But I was just sitting back and watching. To be able to gain that perspective and to be able to just watch and learn and see what people do wrong and what people don’t do wrong for two whole years without actually having to play the game, that’s invaluable.

“I’d never say the injury was a positive because it wasn’t – it was tough. But it definitely helped me to become the pitcher that I am today, without question.”

Now it’s up to the NCAA to see if Webster can squeeze in four full seasons of collegiate baseball amidst the injuries.

The Colonels’ senior pitcher and Thibodeaux both confirmed to the Tri-Parish Times this week that Webster has applied for a sixth year of eligibility with the NCAA.

If approved, the Colonels would have their Friday night starter for a third-straight season – a rarity in the college game.

Thibodeaux said he and his staff feel confident the governing body will allow the pitcher to remain a collegiate athlete.

“We feel really good about it,” Thibodeaux said. “We’re very optimistic and we all feel like we’re going to get that waiver from the NCAA.”

Getting a sixth year is not something Webster said he envisioned when his injuries started to plague him.

He added he looks forward to the chance to possibly being the old man on campus, which will allow him to get a Master’s Degree in education.

“When you’re coming out of high school and going into college with the hopes of someday getting drafted, you don’t ever dream of being in college for six years – that’s like Van Wilder,” Webster said with a laugh. “But it’s pretty cool. It’s not something you see every day.

“Actually, my freshman year, we had a sixth-year senior and I just remember thinking, ‘Man, I don’t know about this guy – I don’t know how he does it,’ but it’s neat and it’s not something everyone gets to do. So why not stick around, give it one more go and go and get my Master’s?

The comedic undertones quickly shift to more serious banter and Webster quickly adds he expects to be much improved should a sixth season be granted.

Darrow said he believes Webster can help his cause by adding bulk in the offseason, which would enable him to increase his pitch velocity.

“I think he can throw harder,” Darrow said. “If he gets stronger, he’ll be able to increase the speed on his pitches. That’s just going to add more stuff to his capabilities. If he can start throwing 85-88, he’s going to be a whole lot tougher to hit.”

When the soft-throwing star doesn’t throw so soft – what a scary thought that might be.

All he’d need is a mo-hawk or a mullet ‘do and then he’d officially look the part.

Until then, he has none of the traditional characteristics and is thus in a league of his own.

Nicholls State pitcher Seth Webster tosses a pitch during a game this season. 

NSU SPORTS