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08/18/2016 12:00 AMChad Deming showed dramatic improvement on the mound through the past few years with the North Branford baseball team. As a result, Chad progressed from being a spot starter to the ace of the Thunderbirds’ staff in his senior season.
“I had one inning my sophomore year and then in junior year, I had 35 innings. This year, I threw 66 innings,” says Chad. “Basically, last year was my first time getting varsity action and getting varsity starts. As a junior, I definitely had some rough starts. Thankfully, they didn’t give up on me and I figured it out toward the end, but it wasn’t easy. The jump from JV to varsity was tough. There was a lot of pressure.”
Chad finished this spring with a 4-3 record and he never shied away from the big game. Chad defeated Haddam-Killingworth on the T-Birds’ Senior Night and later pitched a five-hitter when North Branford blanked East Hampton in the Shoreline Conference Tournament quarterfinals. Chad says he took up pitching at a young age because he enjoyed controlling the game. Whenever he was on the hill, Chad knew he could dictate the flow of the contest, as well as the outcome.
“I liked being in control of the game. If I didn’t produce, the team didn’t have a chance,” he says. “From the beginning, I knew I wanted to be a pitcher. I loved the feeling of being in control of the game and enjoyed that pressure.”
Chad’s arsenal consists of five pitches: a four-seam fastball, a two-seam heater, plus a changeup, curveball, and a knuckle-curve. Chad says that throwing each pitch effectively was a key to his success and he was able to move all five around the zone to constantly keep the opposition guessing.
“Everything has its days, but my curve is more consistent. [The changeup], I left up a lot and got me in trouble, but my curve is always there for me to help me out,” says Chad. “I had to learn what my batters were looking for to make sure not to give them anything good to hit. I also learned to pitch to contact this year. Knowing my team was there and had my back, I let them hit it and knew they’d make all the plays.”
North Branford Head Coach Billy Mitchell took note of all the hard work Chad put in last summer. Mitchell says he could see Chad’s confidence growing throughout the pitcher’s senior campaign.
“He was always a good pitcher. It just all came together for him this year,” says Mitchell. “He did an excellent job this year, but had some tough 1-0 decisions go against him. He was our No. 1 pitcher for sure and pitched a tremendous game against Sheehan [a 4-3 loss in the first round of the Class M State Tournament] and should’ve beaten them. He came into his own during the second half of last year and, this year, I thought he was one of the best pitchers in the [Shoreline Conference].”
Although Chad isn’t 100-percent certain about his future in baseball, he’s contemplating continuing his career at the next level when he attends Endicott College in Massachusetts.
“I’m still on the fence about it. I might be walking on at Endicott, but I’m not sure if I want to put in that commitment,” says Chad. “I love baseball. It’s been my life since I was five or six years old. It’s not that I don’t love the sport, but it’s about balancing that and schoolwork. I would love to play at the next level and experience the challenges of playing against those better kids.”