A workhorse finds his place on the team
Kilkenny’s journey from walk-on to ace leads to series-opening start against No. 1 Florida
COLLEGE STATION — Mitchell Kilkenny’s Texas A&M lineage stretches to the 1800s.
“Covering four generations — but not consecutively,” Kilkenny said with a smile on Thursday.
The Aggies’ Friday night starter grew up attending A&M football games at Kyle Field, and the junior’s blood flowed maroon as a youngster on the southwest side of Houston.
“Always rooting for the Aggies,” he said, “through thick and thin.”
Somewhere along the way as a budding star at Houston Christian High, Kilkenny figured he needed to expand his horizons — that there was more to life than traveling highways 290 and 6 to attend college.
“I wanted to branch out to other states,” he said.
One trip to an A&M baseball camp in January of his senior year of high school changed his mind — and earned the attention of A&M’s coaches.
“It turns out where I ended up,” Kilkenny said, “was the most obvious choice.”
A&M coach Rob Childress sized up the lanky righthander that January of 2015 and figured he was worth an offer — to enroll at the university and come on out to Blue Bell Park.
“We recruited him and offered him an opportunity,” Childress said. “That was all we had to offer at that point.”
Kilkenny was grateful then for the opportunity to simply be a part of a Southeastern Conference program and, long after earning a scholarship and developing into one of A&M’s top pitchers, he’s grateful now.
“My high school coach (Emrick Jagneaux) knew coach Childress, and coach Childress told me to come on out to that camp and show them what I’ve got,” Kilkenny said “That’s exactly what happened, and they were nice enough to offer me a walk-on spot.”
Kilkenny (6-3, 205) happily took it from there, and when he strolls out to the Blue Bell Park mound on Friday night as the Aggies’ No. 1 starter against the nation’s No. 1 team in Florida, that’s the fruitful, fun part. The hard part came in keeping the faith early on as an extra in one of the SEC’s top programs.
“When you come to a school as a walk-on, you really have to have a lot of faith in yourself,” Kilkenny said. “You really have to put in the work and not lose sight of the dream that you have.”
His dream is in sharper focus than ever, after easing in to the Aggies’ top spot in the weekend rotation over the past two SEC series. How did he do it? His advice to young players working their way up the ladder is straightforward.
“You have to do the work, day in and day out,” he said. “All the boring stuff; all of the fun stuff. You have to do it all.”
The Aggies (33-12, 11-10) lead the SEC and rank 10th nationally in earned run average (3.03) and Kilkenny tops the A&M starters in wins (8-1) and ERA (2.13). He began SEC play as the Sunday starter — the No. 3 guy — but worked his way forward thanks to keeping that relentless approach intact even after earning a scholarship.
On Sundays he was occasionally charged with either salvaging a series or winning one. Now? His role has changed, but his approach has not.
“Part of having success as a pitcher is treating every game the same,” Kilkenny said. “The only difference now is it’s a lot more crucial to show the other team your team means business, and set that mentality for the weekend.”
The top-ranked Gators (36-10, 16-5) enter Blue Bell Park having lost three of their last five games but are still without a weekend series loss. The Aggies are angling to change that by Sunday.
“At the first of April we talked about making April our month, in order to make May matter,” said Childress, whose squad has won 12 of its last 15 games. “I don’t think anybody’s résumé is close to being complete.”