Jonah Hurney couldn’t get a single Division I college baseball coach to give him the time of day in high school at Hawaii Preparatory Academy.
Now, some of college baseball’s best coaches are coming up with a scouting report to try to beat him in the NCAA Tournament.
The 2018 HPA graduate has the second-best ERA for the Virginia Tech Hokies, who are the No. 4 national seed and will host an NCAA Regional beginning Friday at English Field in Blacksburg, Va.
The Hokies (41-12) put together one of the best regular seasons in school history to reach the tournament for the first time since 2013. Virginia Tech won the ACC Coastal Division for the the first time, won a program-record nine ACC series and finished the season winning 31 of their last 37 games to earn the program’s highest overall seed ever in the tournament.
“It’s very, very exciting,” Hurney said in a phone interview Tuesday. “To be able to host (a regional) and be a part of this team is crazy.”
Crazy would be the best way to describe Hurney’s journey from up north on the Big Island to the East Coast by way of Southwestern Oregon Community College in Coos Bay, Ore.
He took only one visit in high school — to Division II Concordia University in Oregon — and toured the campus with the baseball coach, who talked to him about everything other than baseball.
“He didn’t say one word about baseball, so I guess that was that,” Hurney said. “Out of high school I knew I could play at the next level, but I didn’t have schools calling.”
He ended up with seven other players from Hawaii on the baseball team at Southwestern Oregon and had a solid freshman year, striking out 74 batters in 541⁄3 innings, but had a 5.30 ERA.
He earned an invite to an all-day baseball showcase, but was only asked to throw to four batters the entire session.
A week after the event, he hadn’t received a single call from a baseball coach from a school other than the University of Hawaii, which didn’t recruit him out of high school.
A phone call eventually came from the pitching coach at Virginia Tech, and while Hurney says he didn’t commit right away, he knew in his head where he was going immediately.
“(UH assistant) coach Mike Brown was in my ear the whole time, but my whole thought process was that they didn’t talk to me out of high school and two years passed and regardless if I had went to Hawaii or went to another school, I felt like I was the same person who they didn’t talk to out of high school,” Hurney said. “It kind of hurt a little bit.”
Hurney transferred to Virginia Tech during the COVID-19 pandemic and pitched 111⁄3 innings last season for the Hokies, who barely made it into the ACC Tournament.
He said he felt the team would be better this season, but admitted he didn’t think about a possible national seed.
“I’d say no,” Hurney said flatly. “I think we weren’t really focused on making it this far. I mean, we knew what we were capable of, but we kind of wanted to take it little steps at a time.”
Hurney has made 22 appearances out of the bullpen and pitched at least a full inning all but twice.
He’s 5-1 with a 2.61 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 38 innings and has turned it up late, allowing one earned run in 10 innings over his last five appearances.
“Four years ago, I was not the same pitcher, I’ll tell you that much,” Hurney said. “To get the correct coaching and advice from a really good pitching coach, I’ve changed tremendously not just velocity wise but my entire repertoire. My knowledge for the game has expanded too.”
Hurney said he touched 93 mph with his fastball in the ACC Tournament, “which was pretty sick,” and sits 90 to 92.
In high school, he topped out at 83 mph.
His improvement has taken a lot of hard work and dedication, and he says he owes a lot of it to his family back home on the Big Island.
“Just trying to be the best I can be really, because I didn’t get as many chances as I thought I would (out of high school),” Hurney said. “I believed in myself step by step through it all and my family believed in me. They’ve sacrificed a lot of time and a lot of money to allow me to do this and I’m just trying to make everyone proud back home.”
The Hokies will open their regional on Friday against No. 4 regional seed Wright State. The other two teams in the regional are No. 2 seed and 12th-ranked Gonzaga and No. 3 seed Columbia.
Hurney is one of four players who graduated from high school in Hawaii in the tournament.
Others in NCAA
>> Trayden Tamiya, Waiakea ’18: The Air Force junior second baseman hit .250 in the Mountain West Conference tournament and finished 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs in an 8-3 win over San Jose State on Saturday to win the tourney. The Falcons (30-27) won all three games they played as the fourth seed, which they clinched on the final day of the regular season. Air Force is the No. 4 seed in the Austin Regional and will open the NCAA Tournament on Friday against No. 9 overall seed Texas in the Academy’s first regional appearance since 1969.
>> Javyn Pimental, Kamehameha ’20: The Arizona junior left-hander pitched twice in the Pac-12 Tournament, allowing an unearned run in 32⁄3 innings with no walks and four strikeouts as the Wildcats were eliminated by Stanford in a 5-4 loss on Saturday. Pimental is 1-0 with a 3.54 ERA in 28 innings this season for the Wildcats, who will play Ole Miss in the Coral Gables Regional of the NCAA Tournament on Friday in a rematch of the 2021 NCAA Super Regional in Tucson that the host Wildcats won to advance to the College World Series.
>> Kalae Harrison, Punahou ’20: The Texas A&M sophomore got an at-bat in the SEC Tournament against Florida on Saturday. Harrison made 12 starts early in the season before an injury sidelined him for much of the rest of the season. He hit .162 in those 12 starts with two doubles, six walks, four runs scored and four RBIs for the Aggies, who earned the No. 5 national seed and will host Oral Roberts in the College Station Regional beginning Friday.
JONAH HURNEY
>> School: Virginia Tech
>> Class: Junior
>> Height: 5 feet 8
>> Position: LHP
>> High school: Hawaii Prep (2018)
CAREER STATISTICS
YEAR APP IP H ER BB SO W-L ERA
2021 8 11 1/3 8 2 2 12 0-0 1.59
2022 22 38 31 11 13 46 5-1 2.61
TOT 30 49 1/3 39 13 15 58 5-1 2.37
