Bettendorf's Bevard impresses

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By Sean Moeller | Sunday, June 24, 2007 11:59 PM CDT | () comments

The Tyler Bevard who’s starring on the mound for the 22-6 Bettendorf baseball team is not the same Tyler Bevard that the Bulldogs had last season.

The senior admits it, as do his coaches. Opposing coaches wouldn’t have to be convinced of the statement’s validity, either.

Bevard has been untouchable in 40 innings this season.

The greatest example of this came a week ago today at            Brady Street Stadium against the high-powered Davenport              Central team. He twirled a no-hitter against the Blue Devils and struck out 11.

Bettendorf head coach Jay Fitzgerald commented that Bevard feels that he’s the best pitcher in the conference, and he would not argue.

“I feel like a whole new person this year,” Bevard said. “I’ve been going to a pitching coach in Cedar Rapids for the last two or three years, and he’s really changed me.”

The pitching coach in              question — Norway High School’s legendary coach Jim Van Scoyoc — is set to be immortalized on the silver screen later this year in the major motion picture “The Final Season,” starring Sean Austin (of “Rudy” and the “Lord of the Rings” franchise), Rachel Leigh Cook, and Iowa’s own Tom Arnold.

Van Scoyoc has guided             Norway — a school with less than 100 students — to 19 state baseball championships over his tenure, and he’s helped Bevard gain confidence in all four of his pitches, including a devastating changeup.

“It was more about getting my mechanics down and becoming more of a pitcher,” Bevard said of the time he put in with Van Scoyoc from the beginning of January to the beginning of April. “Everything he’s taught me has worked. My changeup, last year, was not very good, but this year my catcher (Nick Whitty) calls it a lot. Every time he calls it, I throw it. I throw it anywhere in the count.”

Bevard’s numbers are impressive.

With his no-hitter against the Blue Devils, he’s started five Mississippi Athletic Conference games and not allowed an earned run. He picked up a loss against Pleasant Valley in a game that was plagued by errors. He’s 4-1, with 36 strikeouts in 30 innings. He’s walked five and allowed 13 hits. His strikes-to-balls ratio is 2-to-1 and overall — in 40 innings — Bevard is 6-1 with one save, 49 strikeouts and a 0.34 earned-run average.

“He’s really done a lot this year. He’s really matured. He’s really grown up,” Bettendorf pitching coach Joe Vaccaro said. “What we’ve been surprised with this year, and surprised isn’t really the word because he’s really worked hard, is his hitting. When his pitching’s going well, it’s all going well. He’s always thrown hard, and we’ve always known what he could do, but even though he was throwing hard, I don’t think he had the confidence. When one thing would start going wrong, things would just steamroll.”

Bevard leads the team in home runs (eight) and RBIs (31). He’s hitting .351 overall and has a slugging percentage of .714. Last week, he was named the Radio Iowa Class 4A player of the week.

“It’s been really good this year,” said Bevard, who will join Rock Island Alleman’s Noah Wethington next year at Iowa Western in Council Bluffs. “I changed my stance a little bit. My shortstop — Tyler Robbins — helped me with that. I brought my hands back more, and before I would use my whole body when I swung. This year, I’ve just been using my hands and my hips, and I’m seeing the ball better than I ever have.”

Vaccaro sees a motivated Bevard, who 6-feet-1.

“A lot of scouts told him that they were looking for pitchers over 6-3 and 6-4, and I think that motivated him. He came into the season, and you could tell he was on a mission,” Vaccaro said. “He was always wanting to be drafted and now that the draft’s over, he just knows what he wants to do and he goes out there and does it. A lot of people look past him and they shouldn’t.”

Sean Moeller can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or at smoeller@qctimes.com . Comment on this story at www.qctimes.com.