John-Paul Sauer returning to form after ACL tear

If you asked John-Paul Sauer how he anticipated his senior year on the baseball field would play out, I’m not sure he would have predicted the ups and downs he would face.

In fact, he may not have even had time to envision the upcoming baseball season at all.

Sauer decided to play football going into the fall despite being on the fence about playing.

“The first football practice of the year I tore my ACL,” Sauer said. “I just wanted to play with my friends and play Jackson football. Like, who doesn’t want to do that when they have the chance.”

After having surgery to repair his ACL, Sauer’s surgeon gave him a target return date of mid-April.

“I knew I was going to miss football,” Sauer said. “But, baseball is what’s important.”

With the time frame in mind, Sauer went to work.

“My surgeon said I was going to have to work extremely hard,” Sauer said.

According to Sauer, the road back wasn’t easy, but he credited his friends and teammates for pushing him.

“When I got out in November and I was going to weightlifting with the baseball team, everyone was checking in on me,” Sauer said. “It was just extra motivation. Like, I can (motivate) myself so much but when other people give me the motivation I need it helps a ton.”

Sauer made his season debut on April 2, a home start against the Notre Dame Bulldogs where he tossed two scoreless innings to begin the game while striking out four as the Indians won 16-1.

He continued to ramp up as his next start, against the Cape Central Tigers on April 9, saw Sauer toss four scoreless innings, striking out 10 batters in the 11-0 win.

Sauer had another four-inning outing on April 15 against Marion as Jackson won 12-10.

His final ramp-up start came on Sunday, April 21, a three-inning outing against Collinsville in which Jackson emerged with a 5-3 victory.

Sauer was finally unleashed with no restrictions at an ideal time for him and the Indians; the SEMO Conference Tournament Championship.

“About a month ago was my first start against Notre Dame,” Sauer said. “It’s went two innings, three innings and four innings. But, this game I knew I was going as long as I could. It was a relief knowing that I could control my own destiny.”

Sauer delivered, tossing six shutout innings, and allowing just one hit while striking out 12 batters in Jackson’s 5-0 win over Dexter on Monday.

“Drew (Parsons) behind the plate made my life so much easier,” Sauer said. “We were able to work quickly and it threw some of the hitters off. It was a good night and I couldn’t have done it without everybody else.”

His dominance was praised by Indians head coach Josh Roach following the 5-0 win on Monday.

“It was one of his best (since returning),” Roach said. “His velocity was up there. He threw the ball really hard today. One of the things we’ve noticed as he’s been ramping back up is he gets behind in counts a bit but today he did a really good job of getting ahead of hitters. That’s a good sign that he’s feeling comfortable and able to locate his pitches.”

Another sign that Sauer was feeling comfortable came after his sixth inning of work.

“He wanted to go the whole game,” Roach said. “He was right at the pitch count and I told him I couldn’t throw him back out there for five more pitches. He was like ‘Just let me have one more hitter.’ That was the competitor in him coming out.”

“I knew that when I told him he was coming out he wasn’t going to be happy about it,” Roach said, “and I love that. He’s starting to get that edge back a little bit. He’s going to start getting back to himself from last year.”

Sauer said he “absolutely” wanted to finish the start off, but admitted he hurt his chances of that early in the contest.

“I threw too many pitches in the first couple of innings,” Sauer said. “They were still scoreless innings but I have to find a happy medium. I knew my pitch count was getting up there so I was trying to get as many outs on the least amount of pitches. He made the right call. He knows a lot more than I do. I was just happy to get six scoreless and help the guys win.”

Perhaps the most impressive part of the start against Dexter was he seemed to get better as the game went on.

“In the first inning you have to feel everything out,” Sauer said. “My favorite thing is that later in the game I got better about getting ahead in counts.”

While the road to recovery was long, another milestone moment came for Sauer on April 11 when he officially signed his letter of intent to play baseball at Tulane.

“Jackson has been an awesome place to grow up,” Sauer said. “But it’s time for a change and New Orleans is going to be a big change. Tulane was one of my dream schools and they ended up offering me so it felt like it was meant to be. Everyone down there was the best player on their team in high school so I get to see what I’m made of. I know I’ll get hit around but that actually makes me enjoy baseball more because I find new things that I can fix.”

Sauer and the Indians (21-6) return to action at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 4, when they hit the road to take on De Smet Jesuit.