By Sean Duncan

It was a meaningless game against Mt. Vernon, a team Highland had short-gamed before. Silly to waste a Jake Odorizzi start in a layup victory like this, but Highland coach Joel Hawkins was setting his rotation for the playoffs, and it was his star pitcher's turn to go.

 With two outs in the fourth inning and a runner on second base, the Bulldogs well on their way to another five-inning shutout victory, a Mt. Vernon hitter trickled a grounder past the second baseman. The base-runner rounded third and headed toward home. The crowd released a collective gasp, then fell silent. Hawkins stood in disbelief as he watched Odorizzi's unfathomable scoreless streak possibly come to an end in the most inconsequential of games. 

 Normalcy, however, was soon restored when the Highland right fielder scooped up the ball and easily threw the runner out at the plate. 
 "It really wasn't even a close play, but it was one of those brushes with mortality," said Hawkins. 

 Scrapes with imperfection were few and far between during Odorizzi's whirlwind senior season, one that saw the 6-foot-2, 175-pound right-hander go nearly the entire spring without yielding an earned run, lead Highland to its first state championship and, ultimately, get selected No. 32 overall in the Major League Baseball amateur draft.

 "It's been an amazing year," said Odorizzi, the Prep Baseball Report's 2008 Player of the Year. "I've accomplished my dream, and I'm only 18 years old."
 Odorizzi seized his dream by delivering one of the most statistically dominant seasons in Illinois high school baseball history. Coming off an all-state junior campaign in which he went 11-0 with 13 home runs, expectations were needless to say lofty.

 Odorizzi opened the season with a shutout victory. Then another and another, and didn't stop until his scoreless streak reached 59.2 innings. Finally, after 71 consecutive innings, he allowed his first and only earned run of the season, against Marion in the sectional final in late May. 

 "I think the fans were more upset about it than I was," said Odorizzi. "I never really thought about [the streak]. I just went out there and pitched. I just worried about getting the win. As it turned out, I just kept getting shutouts."

 Perhaps more amazing than Odorizzi's unearned-run streak was that in 89.2 innings he only walked six batters to 146 strikeouts. Odorizzi, whose last high school loss came in May of 2006, finished with a 14-0 record and a 0.08 ERA.

 "I'm flabbergasted," said Hawkins. "I always expected at some point that somebody would stick a bat out and hit it. With a ball coming in at 90 miles per hour, somebody had to hit it a distance. But it never happened; I'm amazed it never happened."

 And it's not like Odorizzi accomplished these feats anonymously. At every game he pitched there were more docked radar guns than a Krispy Kreme parking lot, with each start potentially impacting his future. 

 "The only time I felt pressure was the first game of the year because I didn't really know how many people were going to come out," he said. "But after that, I just blocked it out and pitched. It never made me more nervous. I just coped with it."

 While scouts and fans were there to see him pitch, they also watched him dominate at the plate, in the field and on the base-path. Signed as a two-way player at the University of Louisville, Odorizzi batted .431 with 15 home runs, 10 doubles, scored 65 runs and drove in 41 from the leadoff spot. Hawkins said Odorizzi led off "at least" seven games with a home run, including a taper-shot blast to right-center to open the Bulldogs' supersectional victory over Mt. Zion.

 After the supersectional win, in which he also pitched a five-inning shutout, Odorizzi's already hectic life shifted into warp speed. The vortex began, of all places, in a cramped Best Western lobby in Joliet on Thursday, June 5. That's where Odorizzi, his family and teammates watched the MLB Draft for three-plus hours until the Milwaukee Brewers selected him 32nd overall.

 "When I was finally picked, I was overcome by emotion," he said.

 But that was only the beginning. The next morning Odorizzi came out and pitched a complete-game shutout and scored the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh to beat Crystal Lake Central 1-0, which sent the Bulldogs to the Class 3A championship game.

 Then, on Saturday, with Rock Falls threatening in the seventh - 24 hours after throwing 111 pitches - Odorizzi insisted Hawkins give him the opportunity to put the final stamp on Highland's first state championship.

 "I desperately didn't want to do that," said Hawkins. "But when you have Secretariat pawing in the stable, eventually you've got to get on it and ride."
 After grazing the first batter he faced to load the bases with one out, Odorizzi proceeded to strike out Rock Falls' No. 3 and 4 hitters on nothing but fastballs - to Hawkins' recollection, the hardest he had ever seen Odorizzi throw, which is to say above the 95 mph mark. When the final batter swung and missed, Odorizzi launched his mitt in the air, fireworks exploded into the Joliet sky.

 "I had so much adrenaline going," he said. "I just wanted to put the final stamp on a great season and let the whole town be part of it. It was an incredible weekend - I'll remember it for the rest of my life.”