Jake Bowey starred with the bat last season to be the Perth Heat MVP but it's on the mound he is standing out this campaign as he looks to help hit and throw his team into another ABL Championship Series.
Bowey had the hitting season of his life in the 2023/24 campaign with the Heat where he finished off with an average .301 with his year made up of 37 hits, five home runs and 24 runs batted in which ended up seeing him named Perth's MVP and Hitter of the Year.
While the hitting hasn’t quite got to the same level this season with the Heat, Bowey has had just as much of an impact albeit turning himself into quite the proficient starting pitcher.
He had pinch hit at times even last season as a pitcher, but his throwing has gone to another level this season with him having now started in six of the seven games that he's stepped up to the mound in.
That has seen Bowey take two wins in those six starting games as well and along the way he's going at an ERA of 3.80 from 23.2 innings pitched while only conceding 24 hits, 12 runs and two home runs while having 14 strikeouts.
That's been quite the mighty impressive performance for someone who only pitched on a part-time basis to compliment his hitting and fielding up until this season.
While Bowey does wish his hitting has been better this season with him batting at just .152 with 10 hits and one home run from the 24 games he's stepped up to the plate in, but he has been happy to contribute as a pitcher.
"You're always tougher on yourself than you should be but batting wise this is one of the worst years that I've had," Bowey said on 91.3 SportFM.
"Mentally I've been putting too much pressure on myself trying to do too much but in saying that, I am lucky that I do pitch as well.
"Pitching wise I've actually had a really good year and last game I think I went six inning which is huge for the guys to give the bullpen a bit of a break. It's all about getting hot at the right time now and hopefully everyone else can pitch in and we can get a win."
From a team perspective, the Heat have finished the regular season in third position with a 20-20 record which sets up a tantalising semi-final match up in Adelaide against the Giants with Game 1 starting on Friday night.
What it means is that the Heat are on the road for the third straight weekend after finishing the regular season asway to the Canberra Cavalry and Sydney Blue Sox.
The Heat did manage to win five of those eight games of the road so while it's tough to be travelling for a third straight week, Bowey and his teammates won't be doing any whinging.
"It's a tough one and I won't lie, back-to-back series isn’t easy when we are in Perth and we've got a lot longer flights than everyone else," Bowey said.
"Even look at the other series this week and it's only a three-hour drive for Canberra to Sydney so they won't even have to fly. A couple of our guys are lucky enough to get on a Thursday flight this week to go to Adelaide and the rest of us will be going Friday morning.
"I wanna be able to say the ABL wasn't nice to us, but we're also not the kinda guys who will whinge about everything. We'll get on with it and do our jobs, and make sure we're in the best position we can to beat Adelaide."
This week has been all about Bowey and the Heat trying to freshen up and get ready to give themselves the best shot to earn a measure of revenge this weekend on the Giants for the last two Championship Series against them.
"We're just making sure that we're ready to do what we need to do to play Adelaide," Bowey said.
"We're obviously pretty close with Adelaide just with how well both teams know each other over the last few years, and all of our games are generally pretty close. We're two very close together teams competitive wise so it should be a really good series."