Oakmont Regional southpaw pitcher Jayden Downing commits to Western New England

ASHBURNHAM — For as long as Jayden Downing can remember, his parents have always reminded him where baseball should rank on his list of priorities.

“Ever since I was little they’ve instilled in me ‘academics first. You get your homework done before you go to baseball,” the 17-year-old Oakmont Regional senior said. “It’s something that I agree with.”

Which is why, when it came time to make a decision about where he would further his education and his baseball career, Downing did his homework first.

“I’ve always wanted to do civil engineering and so when I was looking at schools, the No. 1 thing was, could I do their civil engineering program?  Could I excel? Was it a good program?” Downing said. “The second thing was could I play baseball there?”

After touring Western New England University and attending a baseball showcase there last summer, Downing felt confident the school, located in Springfield, was the institution that would provide him with the best of both worlds.

And, though he received at least one scholarship offer from a larger school with a higher level baseball program, it was the combination of WNE’s well-respected undergraduate engineering program — ranked 87th in the country last year by U.S. News & World Report — and the school’s competitive Division 3 baseball program which inevitably led Downing to recently commit to the Golden Bears.

“It was expensive and I wasn’t getting much of a scholarship. It was nice to say I had the offer, but I’m not really upset about turning it down or anything,” Downing said of passing on the opportunity to play Division 1 or 2 college baseball. “I’m not really looking to play baseball after college. Maybe I’ll play in the (Lunenburg) Phillies league or in an old-man league, but civil engineering is what I’m going to have to do for the rest of my life and I want a good degree.”

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Downing, the oldest son of Justin and Nichole Downing of Westminster, believes WNE is the best place for him to earn that degree. A strong student in the subjects of science and math, Downing isn’t one to shy away from a class because it might be challenging.

“I’m in AP Calculus right now. I’ve taken everything engineering that has to do with math: advanced engineering, robotics. It’s always been something that I’ve loved is using my brain to problem solve,” he said. “I like being in classes with all of the smarter kids because it makes me want to compete with them for grades.”

Oakmont varsity baseball coach Tim Caouette called Downing a “case study” of how high school athletes should approach college recruitment.

“A lot of times when a D1 or D2 program flashes money, that’s usually the direction people go. He hit the pause button and said ‘thanks, I need some time’ and he made the decision that was right for him,” the coach said. “I think it’s a great fit for him. … I know that Western New England is going to be happy that they got him because he took the time to do his homework and he found the fit that he thought was going to be best for him and his future.”

A left-handed pitcher and first baseman for the Spartans — as well as for the North County Post 129 American Legion team the last two summers — Downing knows his time as an infielder is rapidly coming to an end.

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His baseball future is on the mound and his junior season statistics add credence to the notion. On the heels of a sophomore season in which he was almost exclusively used as a reliever, Downing stepped into the Oakmont rotation in 2022 and excelled.

Relying primarily on a mix of four-seam and two-seam fastballs as well as two versions of a curveball — Downing says he throws a tumbling 12-6 curveball but also a sweeping curveball which looks and acts more like a slider— the southpaw went 4-0 with a 1.31 earned-run average, 49 strikeouts and 12 walks in 37 2/3 innings pitched as a junior.

“I think a lot of it was his confidence on the mound,” Caouette said of Downing’s successful transition from reliever to the team’s No. 2 starter. “We knew he had good stuff and I think it was just him needing to see that he had good stuff and then once he did it just snowballed. … We have very high expectations for him entering this season and I know he has high expectations for himself.”

Those statistics, not to mention the game film Downing said he sent to the WNE coaches, must have impressed Golden Bears head coach Dan Gomez, who called and offered the Spartans senior a spot on the roster following last summer’s showcase.

Downing’s timing, too, could not have been better. Of the six left-handed pitchers on the Golden Bears roster in 2022, two were seniors and another was a graduate student. Two of the remaining three southpaw pitchers were juniors and are therefore likely on schedule to graduate this spring.

“(Coach Gomez) was saying it was a spot they needed and I fit the role perfectly,” Downing said. “I’ll be working out of the bullpen and then we’ll see. It all depends on what role he wants for me. If he wants me to be a lefty matchup kind of person and face lefty-hitters that’s what I’ll do. I would like to be a starter if that is what it comes to, but as long as I’m playing baseball I’m happy.”

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Downing isn’t resting on his laurels, however. Though the spring sports season isn’t set to begin for another eight weeks, the senior has been participating in after-school weight lifting sessions three days a week in an effort to build up his strength and, he hopes, his velocity.

The dedication to his craft is one of the reasons Caouette has named Downing as one of the Spartans’ five team captains for the upcoming season.

“First and foremost he’s just been a tremendous asset to our program and a tireless worker,” the coach said. “We just appreciate his attitude and his commitment and we knew wherever he wound up that the next level was going to get a special kid who was going to do everything he could to make their program better just like he made our program better.”

Downing, for his part, can’t wait for the season to begin. Asked what he hoped his final campaign with the Spartans would look like, the senior southpaw had a lengthy list of responses at the ready.

“A lot of strikeouts, a lot of innings, and a lot of wins as a team. I’m hoping to take down Leominster. And I want to win the championship this year,” he said. “We’ve come close the last two years, but it’s not enough. I want to win before I leave.”

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As he sat on one end of a wood-framed couch with green cushions — a piece of furniture which could have been plucked out of any college dorm room across the country — in the coaches’ locker room at Oakmont, Downing smiled and said he couldn’t help but see the irony in the fact that, despite touring six college campuses and taking his time to weigh his decision, he still opted to attend the first college he visited.

And how was WNE chosen first?

“It was my mom’s idea. I didn’t really think about college much during my junior year and then (last summer) she was like, ‘alright, we’re going to start looking at colleges,’” Downing said. “I don’t know how Western New England was the first college, but somehow it was the first college that she was talking to me about. We went on the tour and I absolutely loved it.”

When told that his mother’s intuition had been spot on, Downing couldn’t help but smile.

“It always is,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Gardner News: High school baseball: Oakmont pitcher Jayden Downing commits to WNE