LOUISVILLE — Kentucky head coach Gary Henderson called freshman Logan Salow’s number Sunday evening to start the regional final vs. in-state rival Louisville, and Salow did not disappoint. The lights were never too bright for the southpaw who had only thrown 25 innings all season.Making just his second-career start, the Ashland, Ky., native tossed a career-high six innings, while only allowing one run on five hits. Salow threw 95 pitches in the game after a previous career high of 63, which also came against the Cardinals back on April 15 in a winning effort. In his brief UK career, he had never thrown more than 3.2 innings in a single game.When it seemed like Louisville would finally break through, Salow continually got himself out of jams, twice with double plays and twice by retiring American Athletic Conference Player of the Year Jeff Gardner with the bases loaded, including one of those by strike out.”I thought it was tremendous, I really did,” said Henderson. “That’s six innings against a really good opponent. … He got strikeouts on changeups. He threw the ball off the plate to induce the double-play when we were trying to do that. He made pitches and I was really proud of him.”Salow has come a long way from the start of the season and a performance like this will only do wonders for his confidence as he enters his sophomore campaign, though he was the hard-luck loser as the Wildcats saw their season end with a 4-1 defeat.”He hadn’t done anything like that this year and to be able to do it against a club like Louisville, it’s significant and that’s going to help him,” Henderson said. “He’ll draw upon that next fall. In athletics you have to do it — you can talk all you want about practice and the skills are getting better and all those things — but you’ve got to do it in a competitive environment and even more significantly if you do it in a hostile environment or a sense of heightened awareness.”What makes the performance even more remarkable is that the team, and even Henderson for that matter, didn’t know what to expect from Salow. With a limited amount of pitchers available for the game, Henderson was going to have to piece together a pitching staff to force a game on Monday.Salow delivered and then some for his team.”I’m not sure I expected anything,” Henderson said. “I know what I was hoping for and I was hoping for three (innings) clean. If we could get that then I felt like we could go, two (innings), two (innings) and two (innings) with three guys, but to get six with one run and hold them to four on the night with where we were on game four, I think I probably would have signed that deal going into it.”After the third inning, Salow strolled back to the mound. Then came the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. Most people in the stands were probably second-guessing the head coach for sending Salow back out there after clawing his way out of jams in basically every one of those innings. And every time he made Henderson look like a genius.The Wildcats’ future is bright with two freshmen pitchers gaining valuable experience in the NCAA Tournament this weekend. Along with Salow’s performance in the nightcap, fellow freshman Zack Brown helped UK reach the regional final after defeating Kansas in an elimination game earlier in the day.When it looked like Kentucky’s chances of advancing were slim, two of maybe the unlikeliest guys stepped for the Wildcats.”I
don’t think you could have drawn up better freshman starts than what we
got today,” Henderson said. “Pretty amazing today from Zack Brown and
Logan Salow in this environment against those teams.”Brown’s final line won’t look as spectacular as Salow’s, but Brown gave UK exactly what it needed to advance. The Seymour, Ind., native was able to pitch with a sizable lead for a large portion of the game en route to five innings pitched and four runs allowed, which all came in the sixth inning when he was running on fumes.”It gives you hope, but I didn’t need that to make my vision for those kids any more clear,” Henderson said. “I have a pretty good idea where they’re (Brown and Salow) going at least in my mind. It’s more significant for them I think. When you pitch well in a regional that sticks with you. I have a high opinion of those two kids both as people and as pitchers. They’re going to be good.”A.J. Reed, who saw his remarkable season and potentially UK career end — he’s a draft-eligible junior likely to be selected in the early rounds — has a similar appraisal of his school’s future.”I think they’ve got a lot of upside in the future,” Reed said. “We’ve got some young guys that can hit and we’ve definitely got some young arms in the freshman and sophomore class who can definitely pitch. I think some of these guys are going to be able to step up and take over the staff when some of us older guys are gone.”