University of Hawaii pitcher Brendan Hornung lives an orderly life.

His clothes are arranged this way: black, white, then the colors of the rainbow. The black hangers are for button-up shirts, the white hangers for polo shirts. His Les Murakami Stadium locker appears to be inspired by Felix Unger.

“I like it that way because you don’t have to look for anything,” said Hornung, who inherited the neat gene from his grandfather. “He’s a big-time perfectionist. You’ll go into his bathroom and everything is perfectly lined up. You’ll be sitting with him at dinner and he’ll be folding his candy wrappers.”

But nearly three years ago, Hornung’s everything-has-its-place world became misaligned after a line drive struck his right temple during a junior college game. He underwent emergency neurosurgery to correct an epidural hematoma — in essence, his brain was bleeding. Five metal plates were inserted into this head. In the intensive care unit, he was told he faced months of rehabilitation with the hope he would walk normally.

The neurosurgeon said Hornung was lucky.

“He’s seen people with less of an injury come out quadriplegic,” Hornung said. “He said it’s a miracle I didn’t lose my vision or have any side effects.”

Hornung remembers the details leading to the injury. He was in his second year at Chaffey College. He was scheduled to pitch on a Thursday, but because of predicted heavy rains for that day, the game was moved to Wednesday. There was a ferocious line drive to the mound.

“I could see it coming back,” Hornung said. “I had my glove right there. But it barely snuck over, I’d say, about half an inch.”

The ball struck his right temple and ricocheted about 30 feet. A trainer raced onto the field and asked Hornung a series of concussion-testing questions, such as: Do you know the name of the president? “I don’t know if I answered him right,” Hornung said. Because there was poor cell reception in the area, it took about 20 minutes for firefighters and EMTs to arrive.

He was taken to a hospital, where his mother, who is a nurse, insisted on a CT scan. It showed bleeding in the brain. “They immediately called the neurosurgeon, who was 20 minutes away,” Hornung said. “He left his surgery to the resident doctor, and they finished up because they had to immediately prep for me.”

Hornung was then transferred to the second hospital. “Last thing I remember was leaving for the hospital in the ambulance,” Hornung said. “It was kind of like the movies, where they close the doors and everything goes black. I think I woke up two days later.”

He spent eight days in the ICU, two of them in a medically induced coma. When he awakened, he was attached to tubes and wires. Blood was drawn every six hours, his vitals were taken every two. “I couldn’t really sleep,” he said.

The first step to recovery was taking steps. With nurses’ assistance, he walked about 30 feet. Each day, he walked farther, eventually with only a walker. He was released from the hospital but was restricted from academic and athletic activities for three months. He was forced to withdraw from school that semester.

When he wasn’t walking around the neighborhood with a walker, Hornung recalled, “I pretty much sat downstairs, playing a lot of Call of Duty and watching Netflix. I couldn’t do much more.”

Eventually, order was restored. He discovered his vision improved from 20/15 to 20/13. “It helped with the cognitive skills just boosting my Call of Duty ranking,” he said, smiling.

Hornung, with an arcing scar as a reminder, rejoined the Chaffey team the next season. In his return to the mound during a practice, Hornung was asked if he wanted to pitch from behind an L-screen, a stand that allows a pitcher to throw while shielding his body and head. “I said, ‘No, I’ll go out there and face it,’” Hornung recalled. “That’s the best way to do it.”

He wears a carbon-fiber plate on the inside of his cap.

In an early outing, he flinched when a batted ball went up the middle. “Since then, I haven’t thought about it at all,” Hornung said. “It’s not even in my head at all.”

He also was relieved to learn the metal plates would not prevent him from traveling. “It doesn’t affect me in TSA,” he said. “That was my first worry.”

During his recovery, Hornung received texts of encouragement from Brandon McCarthy, a major league pitcher who had suffered a similar injury. They met in San Diego and, during the hour-long conversation, Hornung asked McCarthy to autograph his glove. McCarthy told Hornung “the glove kind of sucks.” Two weeks later, Hornung received a package from the New York Yankees, McCarthy’s team at the time. “It was a brand new custom glove with my name on it,” Hornung said.

Hornung pitched well enough during his redshirt sophomore year at Chaffey to receive an offer from UH coach Mike Trapasso. Hornung, who was the ’Bows’ opening-game starter the past two seasons, had 14 strikeouts in last week’s victory over Sacred Heart. Trapasso described it as the best-pitched game in his 16 years as UH coach. Of Hornung’s back story, Trapasso said, “he’s a special kid.”

“Everything is good,” Hornung said.