Thursday, April 21, 2005 | 9:42 a.m.
Community College of Southern Nevada sophomore Shawn Olsen received an abundance of off-season attention as one of top pitching prospects in junior college baseball.
Turns out he might be more accomplished hitting other pitchers.
Olsen is 5-3, with a 1.97 earned-run average, on the mound for the third-ranked Coyotes (40-8). Five of his teammates have lower ERAs and are a combined 30-4.
He is the rare collegian who plays a position, right field, when he isn't pitching. Olsen leads CCSN with a .376 batting average, 32 runs scored, 13 doubles and a .503 slugging percentage.
And with a wooden bat. The Coyotes will switch to aluminum only if they advance to the NJCAA World Series, where all teams must swing the tin, in Grand Junction, Colo., at the end of May.
Olsen also accepted an invitation to play in the all-wood Cape Cod League this summer, a very rare honor for a junior college player.
"The rarity is to see someone do it and have success at both things," UNLV baseball coach Buddy Gouldsmith said. "Two-way players who can play at this level are obviously special, very special."
It remains to be seen if Olsen plays in the field, when he isn't pitching, at the University of Southern California next season.
When Gouldsmith was at Tulane, the Green Wave had a pair of gifted two-way players in Craig Brown and Michael Aubry. Micah Owings is currently hitting .319 as Tulane's third baseman and is 4-4, with a 3.75 ERA, on the hill.
At Texas two years ago, Huston Street was 8-1, with a 1.33 ERA, but hit only .176 as an infielder. He only pitched last season, going 6-1 with a 1.58 ERA. Sunday, out of Oakland's bullpen, Street earned his first victory in the major leagues.
"Shawn is a guy who is obviously remarkably talented on a good team, that may give you a little insight into his own abilities," Gouldsmith said. "To do that, and do it for a quality team like he plays on ... if there was someone who could match his performance, they would force him to specialize.
"He's an incredibly talented kid."
Olsen doesn't believe he's doing anything special because he's been prepping for a season as a two-way Coyote since fall ball.
"I knew I'd be a two-way player, but I didn't think I'd be hitting as well as I am now," Olsen said. "I thought I'd be pitching better now. Either way, it doesn't matter. It's not as bad as you think."
A Utah native, Olsen transferred to CCSN from Salt Lake Community College. He dismissed all of the preseason publicity he received.
"Even though I was one of the higher-touted pitchers from the first of the year, we have a number of guys on the staff who can pitch just as well as I can," Olsen said. "All that stuff written in the papers doesn't mean it's true."
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