Former STA star Kevin Gould hopes to realize dream of playing pro ball

By Mike Whaley / mwhaley@seacoastonline.com

Kevin Gould’s college baseball career didn’t follow the traditional four-year route, and the possibility still exists that it might not be over.

The Rollinsford native and St. Thomas Aquinas High School graduate had his final year at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass., cut short in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NCAA granted all spring athletes an extra year of eligibility, but Gould isn’t sure if he will take advantage of one more season. He graduated in 2019 with a degree in Business Administration, and this past spring earned his MBA.

“That’s unsure at the moment,” said Gould. “If I’m sitting around in the spring (of 2021), I would definitely consider it. It’s a second option. At the moment I’m hoping to play at the next level in some capacity.”

Gould did put his name into the transfer portal, which gives him the option, if he so chooses, to pitch in college next year. He could do so for another school.

Gould plans to pitch this summer with the Northeast Tides, a first-year Seacoast N.H. 18-and-over team playing in the North Shore Baseball League. The league is planning to open its season in early July.

He was recently honored by the College Sports Information Directors of America as an Academic All-America Division III Baseball Third Team pick.

Gould carried a 3.73 GPA as a graduate student and a 3.53 GPA as an undergraduate.

As a pitcher for Endicott, Gould pitched two full seasons. His sophomore season he went 6-1 with a 2.38 ERA, earning Commonwealth Coast Conference First Team honors while being named the conference’s pitcher of the year.

After missing his entire junior season recovering from Tommy John surgery, Gould, 23, came back as a senior in 2019 to fashion a 6-2 mark with a 2.19 ERA, earning all-conference first team honors once again.

This past spring as a graduate student, Gould pitched in three games with a 4.34 ERA before the season was canceled. Endicott’s record was 4-5. “I pitched OK, but it was early in the season,” he said. “There was a lot of time left.”

Gould’s career numbers included 24 starts, a 14-4 record and a 2.54 ERA.

The Gulls went 23-18 during his senior season and 25-19 in his sophomore campaign.

When Gould enrolled at Endicott in 2016, he missed the fall season recovering from labrum surgery related to a high school football injury.

He appeared in just six games, working 4 1/3 innings.

“My freshman year was kind of a waste, but a great learning experience,” Gould said. “My sophomore year was when things began.”

He recalls a game late in his freshman season at St. Joseph’s College (Maine). It was a mid-week game when guys who don’t pitch as much get their work. Gould got called into the game to pitch a fresh inning, which was something new for him.

“The first time I came into an (earlier) game I had walked the batter on four pitches and got pulled,” he said. “It was nice to have a clean inning.”

Gould did well. He tossed two perfect innings with one strikeout.

“OK, I saw some success here,” he said. “It gave me a confidence boost going forward.”

Gould returned as a sophomore and had a solid fall. “I was looking pretty good,” he said.

The turning point, however, came in the team’s first spring scrimmage against Salem State. Gould went out and tossed seven shutout innings. Although he remembers some seeds of doubt springing up at the beginning: “To start the game, to let me know I was not the guy, they had a few guys in the bullpen ready to go at a moment’s notice,” he said.

“After that game, I never really looked back,” Gould said.

Until he got hurt.

It was a UCL tear late in the season. “I felt it in the last inning of the last batter with two strikes,” he said. “I couldn’t pull myself out. I had to finish that batter.

“That was a tough one to swallow,” added Gould, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound righty. “Obviously getting a surgery like that is a commitment monetarily and timewise. It’s over a year of recovery once you commit to it. I personally decided I was in 100 percent to see where it would take me.”

A big help proved to be retaining the services of Ryan George, who runs Pro-From in Dover. “He has the background and credibility with a ton of sports organizations and teams,” Gould said.

Gould liked George’s philosophy, which does not focus so much on getting big and strong. “His is more fundamental,” Gould said. “You’re strong in the right places. That has changed the way I go about pitching and recovery. That’s where the biggest change happened; just approaching with a regard for my body and my arm muscles.”

Gould throws three pitches. “My fastball (clocked recently in the low 90s) moves a lot, which is really hard to hit,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know where it’s going. My slider goes in the complete opposite direction. It comes out of the same arm slot. It makes for a tough combo. I mix in a changeup here and there just to show it.”

Gould plans to pitch with the Tides this summer, while keeping his options open to pitch at the professional level if he can make that happen.

Eventually, Gould said he’d like to look into entrepreneurship, starting his own company. But for now his focus is on baseball.

“The pro level is the dream and the goal,” he said.