Tim Lincecum, the baseball standout who led the Liberty High School Patriots to the 3A state baseball tournament in 2003, has won the National League’s Cy Young Award, as the best pitcher in baseball.

After graduating from Liberty, Lincecum, 24, went on to the University of Washington, where in 2004 as a freshman he was named Freshman of the Year and Pitcher of the Year in the Pac 10. He was an All-American in 2006. Lincecum owns a Pac-10 record with 491 career strikeouts in just three seasons as a Husky.

Glen Walker was the head coach at Liberty when Lincecum pitched there and when the Patriots won the state title in 2003.

He remembers the first moment he realized Lincecum had the chance to be something special. It was Lincecum’s junior year, he came in to a game against Skyline in the late innings with the bases loaded and the heart of Skyline’s batting order coming up. Lincecum went on to strikeout the side and keep Liberty in the game.

“He really just made them look foolish,” Walker said. “I looked at the other coaches, they looked back at me and it hit us like a ton of bricks that this kid had something we had never seen before.”

Walker now coaches at Auburn Mountainview and still watches Lincecum pitch every chance he gets. If the Giants’ games aren’t on TV, he checks the box scores online.

“It’s just very exciting for all of us that have had a chance to get to know this kid,” Walker said. “If there was a record at Liberty, he broke it. Just like he broke records at UW and I’m sure by the time he’s done, he’ll break a lot of records in the majors.”

This is only Lincecum’s second season with the San Francisco Giants. In his rookie season of 2007, he went 7-5 with an ERA of 4.00 in 24 games, throwing 150 strikeouts in 146 1/3 innings. In 2008, he went 18-5, leading the league with 265 strikeouts in 227 innings. His ERA was 2.62.

Reporter Adam McFadden contributed to this story.