By Mike London
Salisbury Post
BOILING SPRINGS — East Rowan graduate Chance Mako turned 21 0n Thursday, with a lot of pitches behind him and hopefully a lot more ahead.
Mako, who struck out 102 batters as an East senior, will be pitching for his third college team in the spring of 2026, as he entered the transfer portal and committed to Gardner-Webb. He’s previously been at N.C. State and Coastal Carolina.
Baseball life takes unusual turns. When Mako was coming out of East Rowan in 2023 with quite a bit of justified hype, it appeared likely that the 6-foot-5 right-hander would never be a college student. He starred on the national stage for the South Charlotte Panthers, was invited to the MLB Combine and was on every expert’s top-150 list for that summer’s MLB draft.
But the 2023 draft didn’t bring a match in terms of what it was going to take to sign Mako and what teams were willing to pay.
He had signed with N.C. State, so he headed to Raleigh.
As a freshman, he got on the mound only twice for the Wolfpack, pitching 1 1/3 innings.
After a summer in the Cape Cod Baseball League, he transferred to Coastal Carolina. That worked out splendidly for him as far as the team aspect of things. Coastal Carolina was a powerful 56-13 squad that nearly won the national championship, and Mako scratched an item off his bucket list — the College World Series.
He didn’t get to pitch much for the Chanticleers, however. Four games and six innings.
That’s two college seasons and a total of 7 1/3 innings. There’s not much wear and tear on his arm.
Gardner-Webb was a 17-36 team in 2025, so Mako will likely get an opportunity to pitch marquee games on weekends for the Bulldogs, and there’s no reason to think he won’t be successful. He’s still 6-foot-5 with the ideal pitching frame and he always has had great stuff if he can locate it.
There’s a reasonable chance he could pitch himself right back on the MLB radar for the summer of 2026.
