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Athlete of the Week: Nevin leaving no doubt about health

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A ground ball came bouncing Tyler Nevin’s way on Thursday at El Capitan High. The sure-handed third baseman for Poway had to take a few steps back to catch it on the good hop.

He gloved the ball knowing it was going to take a strong throw across the diamond to get the runner. He let loose and recorded the out.

It may have looked like an ordinary play, but it was much more than that to Nevin.

It was another mental step forward in his comeback from Tommy John surgery (a ligament in his right elbow was replaced with a tendon from his hamstring), which he underwent in October of 2013.

“I used to think about it when I threw the ball,” said Nevin, the oldest son of former San Diego Padres slugger Phil Nevin. “I used to wonder, ‘is it going to tear again? Will it be OK?’ But that is gone now and I pretty much feel like I did before the surgery.”

That is evident every time he zips the ball across the diamond. It has also shown with the way the baseball has been jumping off his bat.

“No doubt he is back 100 percent,” Poway coach Bob Parry said. “He is a lot stronger and hitting the ball a lot harder. His arm looks like it never had surgery on it.”

Nevin, a UCLA signee, is hoping pro baseball scouts get that message before the draft in early June.

“I want to reinstate that I didn’t drop off the face of the earth,” Nevin said. “And that I am back and better than I was before and I intend to keep getting better. I have to show that I am still a hitter and I didn’t go away just because I got hurt and was out for a year.”

Nevin missed all of his junior season. He could have come back late in the year, but decided it was not worth the risk. Nobody knows for sure what caused the injury to his right arm, but becoming the closer for the Titans during his sophomore year probably did not help.

“I had never really pitched before,” he said. “I just threw hard and could throw strikes. That definitely is what accelerated the injury. If it would have happened a few years down the line anyway, who knows? But it was definitely added torque.”

Nevin’s pitching days are over. The closest he will get to a mound is when he jogs across it from the visitor’s dugout to get to third base, where he has just one error this season.

He has been just as tremendous at the plate, hitting .474 with a double and a home run entering this week. He had to work hard in the cages during the summer to get his stroke back.

“I was hitting whenever I could after that five-month period after the surgery,” Nevin said. “They took the tendon from my hamstring so I couldn’t run or work out for a long time, but as soon as I was able to I took as many hacks as I could.”

Nevin committed to UCLA as a sophomore and signed with the Bruins on Nov. 12, 2014. He said UCLA was his first choice from the start, because it had everything he wanted in a college — close to home so family could watch him play, in a great conference and a hitter-friendly offense.

“(UCLA Coach John) Savage said he wants to get away from the classic bunt the guy over that everybody in college baseball is doing,” Nevin said. “He wants big hitters who hit doubles and home runs. They are going to let me hit and play my game and not mold me into something I am not.”

Good thing. Because Nevin just got back to being himself.

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