Simply stated Shawn Kelley is the best “big-game” pitcher in Austin Peay baseball history. His performance in the epic 2007 College World Series contest against Vanderbilt and David Price only underscored a reputation he built during his five years as a Governor.
Kelley’s remarkable career was interrupted almost before it got started. A 2002 elbow injury saw his 2003 season end with surgery.
The Louisville native bounced back in 2004, moving into the starting rotation to post a modest 3-3 overall record, in a closely monitored 62.2 innings pitched. The Govs’ hard-luck hurler’s 3.45 ERA was third lowest in the OVC as the Governors posted an overall 35-21 record and a first-place 20-7 OVC mark.
In 2005, Kelley began building his big-game pitcher reputation. He was 4-1 in OVC games that season, his only loss to Jacksonville State. However, he avenged that loss with a sterling 4-1 complete-game semifinal victory against the Gamecocks in the OVC tournament. It helped the Govs to the tourney title and only the program’s second NCAA tourney appearance in Knoxville. He not only earned OVC all-tourney honors but second-team All-OVC as well.
With an assortment of injuries plaguing the Governors in 2006, Kelley’s record (5-6) belied his overall effectiveness as his 3.30 ERA ranked sixth in the OVC. Still, Kelley helped get the Govs into the OVC tournament, gained another OVC tourney victory, a 6-3 complete-game victory against Eastern Illinois that again helped him earn OVC all-tournament honors.
He received his bachelor’s degree in political science (minor in mathematics) in Spring 2006 but chose to return to APSU for his fifth-year senior baseball season, a decision that proved to be the ultimate “win-win” for the right hander and the Governors baseball program.
Arguably, Kelley enjoyed the greatest season ever for an APSU hurler. He finished the season 11-3 overall—those 11 wins tying for 16th nationally—that included a 7-1 OVC record. It was a season that saw the Govs roll to OVC regular-season and tourney titles. He completed eight of those starts, tying the APSU mark for single-season complete games while tossing a pair of shutouts in compiling a 2.40 ERA. In 127.2 innings pitched (an OVC record, as are his 390.1 career innings), Kelley permitted an almost unfathomable 11 walks while fanning 82.
He opened OVC tournament play by throwing a complete-game 5-1 victory against Samford—his third straight OVC tourney win and complete game. He paced a pitching staff that allowed just four runs and one walk in three tourney contests. The Governors then were assigned to the NCAA Regional in Nashville—Kelley’s second NCAA tourney appearance in three seasons.
It was in Nashville where Kelley literally wrote his legend. Kelley was matched against Vanderbilt, one of the heavy favorites to win the national crown, and Price, the No. 1 pitching prospect in the country who later that spring would become the No. 1 pick in the Major League Baseball Draft. Never wavering, Kelley authored what most consider the greatest single-game pitching performance in Gary McClure’s tenure as baseball coach. He matched Price pitch for pitch, allowing only one run–on a wild pitch–to a highly-touted lineup that featured eight players drafted over the next two seasons.
He gained a no-decision in a contest in which he threw 10 innings, allowed five hits and zero walks while fanning nine. Although the Governors lost that epic game 2-1 in 11 innings it was the jumping block for Governors baseball successes since. In fact, the next day the Govs won their first NCAA tourney game against Memphis.
Kelley is one of two athletes (former Lady Govs basketball player Gerlonda Hardin being the other) to leave Austin Peay with four championship rings. He was able to parlay his Vanderbilt success into a 13th-round selection in the Major League Baseball draft by the Seattle Mariners.
In 2008, he was named the Mariners Minor League Pitcher of the Year. In fact, in less than two seasons, Kelley pitched his way to the major leagues. After toiling from 2009-12 in an injury-interrupted stay with the Mariners, he was traded to the Yankees in 2013 and enjoyed one of his best seasons as a major leaguer. He was named the Yankees’ May Pitcher of the Month.
