University of North Carolina Athletics
GoHeels Exclusive: That's Baseball
June 8, 2019 | Baseball, Featured Writers
By Pat James, GoHeels.com
When he was in the thick of it, a sophomore season that mostly fell short of his personal expectations, Ashton McGee was unflappable. He never appeared panicked about his follow-up to his sensational freshman campaign.
But looking back now, almost an entire year later, he acknowledges that going through those struggles was more difficult than he made it seem.
"It's tough going through it and having failure," said McGee, the 2017 ACC Freshman of the Year. "Most kids coming into college have hit .500 or .400, whatever it is, in high school. And then to come in here my freshman year and do so well and come off a sophomore year that wasn't too hot, it's difficult.
"But you've just gotta look yourself in the mirror and say you've gotta be better and you've gotta improve every day because nobody is going to feel sorry for you. You've just gotta keep going."
Some days that proved more challenging than others. Over time, though, he learned how success can be found in accepting the normalcy of failure. And entering Saturday's NCAA super-regional opener against Auburn, that lesson has paid dividends throughout his junior campaign.
After graduating from Charles B. Aycock High School in Pikeville, N.C., a semester early and enrolling at North Carolina in January 2017, McGee hit .327 with seven homers, 10 doubles and 46 RBIs as a freshman. He was named a consensus freshman All-American and earned first-team honors from Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, D1Baseball, NCBWA and Perfect Game.
But shortly after that season ended, his struggles began.
McGee spent the summer after his freshman season playing in the prestigious Cape Cod League. Facing some of the country's best pitchers, he hit .139 (10-for-72) with 32 strikeouts and nine walks in 23 games. It was frustrating, he said, not performing to the best of his ability. And that sentiment carried over into his sophomore campaign.
In the first 22 games of his sophomore season, McGee hit .159. He batted .305 in his final 37 games, finishing the year with a .257 average. But assistant coach Jesse Wierzbicki said McGee didn't always swing at good pitches, which led to McGee getting himself out early in at-bats.
"Last year it just didn't feel right," McGee said. "I've never really experienced that before where I was swinging at a lot of pitches in the dirt and I just wasn't seeing it and picking it up well."
To combat that, Wierzbicki said McGee began taking more swings off the pitching machine, helping him improve his eye. Mechanically, he also made some adjustments, specifically when it came to hitting the changeup, a pitch that Wierzbicki said "really gave (McGee) trouble."
This past fall, McGee said the pitchers typically threw him a lot of changeups during practices. Because he has such quick hands, he started sitting on changeups and would simply react whenever a fastball was thrown. That approach quickly led to results.
"Probably for the next two weeks I started lacing balls," he said. "And that kind of just got me back to being able to set my eyes for a changeup early in the count and still be ready for a 92-, 93-mph fastball. Once that happened, I kind of got my confidence back up."
It could've easily dwindled after the season began.
Through UNC's first 39 games, McGee batted .229 (27-for-118). Only nine of his hits in that span went for extra bases. But he said he was "seeing (pitches) so well and I was hitting balls hard but right at people." So he kept plugging along.
At the same time, he was still getting on base frequently. In those first 39 games, he drew 36 walks, matching his career high. He's now up to 48 walks on the season.
"When he gets on base, he's a great baserunner, so there's always a chance for him to score," Wierzbicki said. "And this year, even though he'd like to have more hits, he's gotten on base so much and that's really helped him.Â
"I think just going through that struggle last year has really helped him be able to balance this year and really focus in on, 'I don't necessarily have to get three hits a game to have a successful day at the yard. I can still be productive with a double here and two walks. The stat line is I'm 1-for-4 with one hit, but I was still able to get on base.' He's done a really good job with that."
McGee was being so patient at the plate during the first half of the season that he said Wierzbicki eventually told him he'd taken a certain amount of pitches in his hot zone and could benefit from being more aggressive. And that's largely why he's been so productive over the past month.
Entering Saturday's contest, McGee is slashing .314/.402/.558 with a .960 OPS over his past 22 games. He's totaled five of his six home runs and 24 of his 41 RBIs in that span.
McGee's 10 RBIs this postseason are the most by any Tar Heel. Perhaps the two most important came in the sixth inning of last Saturday's 16-1 regional win over Liberty, when he launched a 2-0 pitch – a changeup – over the right-field wall to give Carolina a 4-0 lead and seemingly all the momentum. He then drove in the first two runs of Sunday's 5-2 victory over Tennessee.
"When I put a good swing on it, good things seem to happen," said McGee of his recent success at the plate. "I'm just trying not to do too much and then go out there on the field and play good defense."
That's arguably how he's made his biggest contributions.
Before this season, McGee had made 57 of his 112 career starts (50.9 percent) at designated hitter. A majority of those came during his freshman season. Then as a sophomore, he primarily played in left or right field.
But as Mike Fox has searched for UNC's ideal defensive lineup throughout this season, McGee has displayed his positional versatility, starting 11 games at four different spots. He's made 23 starts at third base, 16 in right field and 11 at second base and in left field. He's started all seven postseason games at second base, the position he'll likely play at the next level.
"I'm not sure we'd be where we are without Ashton McGee being able to play left field, second base, right field and then third during that stretch," Fox said. "We've somewhat been a work in progress defensively, as everyone knows at this point. So my hat's off to Ashton for embracing his role. I think he's really played well at second down the stretch here."
The Tar Heels will need him to continue to do so as they look to return to the College World Series for the second straight year – and hopefully make some noise once they get there.
That's currently McGee's priority. But on Wednesday, when he was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 18th round of the MLB Draft, he surely took some time to think about his future. He won't have to make any decisions regarding it until the season's over. No matter where his career takes him, though, he knows he'll benefit from the lessons he learned last season.
"Going into whatever later on in my career, you know, you're going to fail in baseball," McGee said. "It's just going to happen; that's baseball. So just having that in my back pocket where I've experienced it before, I think it will help me tremendously.Â
"There are a lot of people who maybe still haven't gone through that and they're not going to know how to handle it. If you have a bad 0-for-15, 0-for-10 week or whatever, you've just gotta keep working and keep getting in the box the same way as if you were 10-for-10."
