HARROGATE, Tenn. — It's almost like it happened yesterday. The bases were loaded, and tensions were high.
 
Adam Sullivan motioned down to his bullpen to a freshman lefty who had never thrown a pitch at the high school level before. Even in a pivotal district matchup versus Bearden, Sullivan's gut feeling told him his rookie could pull the Fighting Irish through.
 
It was a moment that would have overpowered just any pitcher.
 
 Ethan Elliott has never been in such a category, though.
 
"When he got to Catholic, he was already good and then he just needed the chance to pitch and the chance to mature, get bigger and stronger," Sullivan, Elliott's four-year head coach at Knoxville Catholic, said. "He was tall, but he was really skinny; I used to call him baby giraffe. When he came in his freshman year, we knew he was good, and being left-handed gave him an advantage also as a young pitcher, but we put him on the mound against Bearden with the bases loaded and it didn't faze him when he was a freshman. Joe [O'Brien] worked with him and he was pretty polished. He just needed the chance to get bigger physically."
 
That outing versus the Bulldogs was just the beginning of big moments for the to-be Lincoln Memorial University standout's baseball career — one that has another chapter looming after he was selected by the San Diego Padres in the 10th round with the 293rd pick June 4.
 
It was a selection that made Elliott the highest Railsplitter pitcher taken in the Major League Baseball Draft and the 11th overall player in program history.
 
"If you would have asked me when we recruited Ethan could we have predicted he would have turned into — list all the accolades and the most decorated player in the history of the program — I would have never predicted that," LMU head coach Jeff Sziksai said with a grin.  "Anybody that says they could have seen that coming, would be lying. We thought he had a chance to develop into a really effective pitcher for us, but for him to turn into what he turned into nobody could have predicted that and that's a credit to Ethan and his work ethic and competitiveness."
 
What It Takes
 
When Elliott took the mound for the first time in his high school career with the base pads juiced, it was somewhat of a blur.
 
The lanky lefty felt the heat of the moment, but he didn't overthink it.
 
Elliott reverted to all the hard work he put in leading into that moment like the camps he attended as a young kid with his older brother, Andrew, and the training sessions with Knox Catholic and Tennessee baseball great Joe O'Brien that laid the foundation and prepared him for a stress-filled situation like the one before his eyes.
 
"It was a very nerve-racking moment for me," Elliott said, laughing, "especially being a freshman but Sully had all the confidence in the world in me, and I just went out and did what I do and that's throw strikes; then good things happened."
 
Zipping fastballs and hitting his spots in the zone is all Elliott has ever done, dating back to his high school career to catch the eye of LMU and through his four-year college stint to attract pro scouts.
 
His Railsplitter program-best career 402 strikeouts speaks to that, and the innings prepped at Knoxville Catholic paving the way to his All-American status at Lincoln Memorial backs it up.
 
"I think having success early in my high school career kind of really let me know this was the right choice for me," Elliott said. "Then, I pretty much kept my head down and worked hard and ended up there.
 
"Facing guys like [Bearden star] Lane Thomas, that has a shot in the Major Leagues right now, was definitely a competitive moment for me. I went out there as a freshman throwing strikes, and the outcome definitely helped me become who I am in the moment of competing against the best of the best and knowing I had what it took."
 
'Baseball is Baseball'
 
Throughout Elliott's days at Catholic, Sullivan spent countless hours on the phone lines, attempting to put his talented left-handed pitcher's name in the ears of college coaches.
 
Even skippers at surrounding schools were, too.
 
"I called a lot of places and a lot of guys like Matt Buckner, down at Farragut, who had lost to him were calling people," Sullivan remembered, "saying 'Hey man, this guy is the real deal.'"
 
Some took the bait while others didn't.
 
The main reason some were hesitant, according to Sullivan, was due to the fact that Elliott's velocity wasn't turning the heads of scouts because the radar gun wasn't topping 90.
 
Lincoln Memorial acknowledged his velocity, knowing it could get even better to pair with everything he already did extremely well as a blossoming teenager.
 
"We saw Ethan a couple of times go out and beat some really good teams in the state playoffs," Sziksai said. "The main things that stood out about Ethan were his fastball command and his competitiveness. He wasn't a guy that threw very hard out of high school, but his fastball command was off the charts and he really competed to beat some really good teams. Out of high school, not a lot of people were on Ethan because he didn't throw hard. He threw 78 to 81 in high school and when he got to LMU — to his credit and to the credit of the coaching staff too — he developed and made himself into what he is now."
 
The 6-foot-3 Elliott didn't have a plenitude of offers. He received some from smaller schools, while being in talks with Tennessee Tech and having a preferred walk-on opportunity at Tennessee.
 
He could have taken the Division I route, one a lot of potential high school players want for the title, but Elliott has never been about that.
 
All he's ever wanted to do was play baseball and being a Railsplitter allowed him to do just that.
 
"You see all the Division I teams on TV and it's the people that attract the most attention and the most fans," Elliott said, "but baseball is baseball. We all play the same sport, and all play the same positions; there is nothing different between DI and DII. It's just the ability to do something that you love.
 
"LMU stood out to me because it was a change, and I thought right off the bat I'd have a chance to play, which is really what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be on the backburner. I wanted to make an impact early in my college career, which I did and was fortunate enough to do."
 
Unforgettable Arm
 
The pro scouts didn't make the same mistake the college scouts did, taking note of how talented a player the Lincoln Memorial product really was.
 
With analytic-driven teams nowadays, Elliott was like a dream for teams and his luxurious career at LMU — where he finished as a five-time All-American, nine-time All-Region player, Region Pitcher of the Year, two-time NBCWA Regional Pitcher of the Week and Academic All-District in addition to being named All-South Atlantic Conference three times, SAC Pitcher of the Year and SAC Freshman of the Year — didn't go unnoticed.
 
"The scouting game has changed over the last couple of years with things like the spin rate and spin efficiency," Sziksai said. "The organizations that were into that tended to like Ethan more than I don't know if you want to call it the old-school approach where you just want to read a radar gun. He's not going to light up a radar gun — I think he topped off at 92 this year but sat in the 86 to 89-90 range.
 
"The old-school pro scout, they kind of look for 90 and above — they call to the big nine — and Ethan just was never that. He never sat 90 to 93, but the analytics and spin rate stuff on Ethan was really good so now that Major League Baseball has gone and invested a little bit more in that he rated very high with those analytics."
 
His program-leading feats ERA (3.01), wins (37), starts (54), innings pitched (358) and those 402 career strikeouts, plus earning a spot on the Google Cloud Academic All-America Team with a 3.43 GPA, also contributed to Elliott solidifying an opportunity at the next level.
 
It's just another testament to the work ethic Elliott embodied all these years, continuing to get better with O'Brien in middle school, and then his Catholic pitching coach Adam Walker before taking the next step under the direction of his three-year LMU pitching coach Josh Epstein followed by first-year coach Andrew Fabian, during his senior season.
 
The number on the radar gun may have been against Elliott, but his attitude and competitiveness always trumped the doubts of others. His relentlessness and ability to command on the mound has and will always make Elliott an unforgettable arm, or the one that got away for many.
 
But for LMU, Sziksai and his staff made sure it didn't make that mistake as they reaped the benefits and witnessed the overlooked, lofty recruit just down the road in Knoxville re-write the Railsplitter history books.
 
 "I know, and I know Coach Sziksai knows, and everyone else that has been around him knows that the guy can just flat-out pitch," Sullivan said. "He's the guy you want on the mound against anyone, but what I was really worried about was the pro scouts would do the same things that the college scouts did. I've played at a high level and been with some great guys, but he's the best I've ever seen. When he goes on the mound, he just has laser focus for what he's trying to do. He believes in what he's doing, and he just goes out there and executes.
 
"He's the best I've ever seen at executing the pitch and understanding what he's really trying to do. And being within himself — that's another thing he does — for us [at Catholic] he didn't throw 90, but he didn't try to throw 90. He went out and did what he did. He had an awesome little breaking ball, change up and a slider; he can pitch. To his credit, he never tried to be something he wasn't. He was just stinkin' good and still is. If I had to put a team together of all the guys I've coached and they said, 'You need one guy to pitch against the Yankees.' It'd be Ethan Elliott on the mound. I wouldn't even blink. It'd be Ethan right there because that guy can get it done."