Gig Harbor grad Gerling worked his way into UW rotation. Now he’s eager for a season

After spending his first two collegiate years at Tacoma Community College and transferring to the University of Washington, Logan Gerling was about to realize a childhood dream.

He was going to toe the mound for his favorite college after working to prove himself to be a pitcher that the Huskies can rely on. He was going to make his first rotational start in an away series against the University of Southern California.

That was earlier this year in March, right as the NCAA announced it would cancel all spring sports because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was March 12, I remember that day very clearly. We just got off the bus and we were waiting in the TSA line to go to USC,” Gerling said. “The Pac-12 released a statement saying that all competition from here on out was canceled. That was supposed to be my first start, too. I earned my way into the rotation so I was kind of let down.”

For seven long months, Gerling and his teammates weren’t allowed to even step onto the baseball field so they had to find ways to hone their craft on their own.

Gerling at the time quarantined with a former teammate from TCC, and what they would do was baseball focused workouts and toss the ball around every day to keep themselves ready if they could return to action.

“It felt like going back to junior college because none of the weight rooms are open and the only access to a field I had was the local parks,” Gerling said. “And even then there were some in the cities that we weren’t allowed [into] either. Those first couple of months, you got to find things to keep getting stronger and keep getting better.”

Of course Gerling knows a thing or two about getting stronger and getting better as his post-high school career began with his decision to develop more before he got to a big D-1 school.

Having come off a state championship in spring 2017 with Gig Harbor High School, Gerling had eyes on pitching for a major university. However, he felt he needed to develop more physically and decided to begin his collegiate career at TCC.

“For me, I knew I felt I wasn’t physically developed there yet, so I chose to go to a junior college,” he said. “I didn’t really know what it was like to work hard, not that I didn’t want to work hard and didn’t have good work ethic, but I just didn’t know… That mindset was built in me by the coaches at TCC.”

On the mound, Gerling’s first two years at TCC showed just how dominant of a pitcher he could be for his team. As a freshman in 2018, he posted a 4-1 record, earned a save and had a 2.46 earned run average.

His sophomore year is when he really came into his own. Posting an 11-0 record with a 1.49 ERA, Gerling was named the 2019 Northwest Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Year, First Team All-Conference and a West Coast Junior College All-American.

“I saw this quote the other day and it said something like ‘once you see results it becomes addictive’. And that’s 100% true,” Gerling said. “I started to see the results in starts down in Tacoma, that became addictive. I set out to be the guy at Tacoma. I wanted to be the guy that took the ball, toed the rubber and all my teammates knew we were going to win the game.”

Because the NCAA granted spring athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gerling will be considered a ‘COVID Junior’. However, he is still academically a senior at UW.

With all the time that he was forced to miss, Gerling is ready to make his mark on the 2021 season that will hopefully begin in the late winter/early spring.

“As long as I stay consistent with my workouts and work ethic, I think [this year] will go exactly how I want it to,” he said. “I do know things don’t go exactly as planned but in one way or another it will end up on the good side for me. Things happen for a reason and when COVID hit, it gave me time to reflect and work on some things.”

He knew what needed to be worked on and in these last seven month, Gerling pushed himself to keep getting better and to continue to earn his success on the field.

And when he takes the mound again, he’s going to be angry yet calm. He sees the batter as someone that is trying to take his job way from him, and Gerling will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

Gerling and the Huskies hope to get back to the field in the spring. Although there is no set schedule yet, February is right about the time college baseball will begin for the Pac-12.

This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 6:00 AM.