Petoskey's Harmon taking command of young Northmen pitching rotation

PETOSKEY — There wasn’t exactly a lot known about the Petoskey pitching staff heading into the year.

With its two aces graduated and much of the rotation still young and unproven at the varsity level, there were some bumps in the early road expected.

But, that hasn’t exactly been the case. Actually, that hasn’t been the case at all.

A lot of that has come thanks to the veteran presence of junior Peyton Harmon. And yes, as a junior with previous varsity experience, that makes him one of the vets.

Harmon was back on the mound dealing Tuesday in his fourth start of the season when Petoskey welcomed Traverse City Central for their Big North Conference opener, delivering the same kind of performance that’s beginning to draw some expectations.

“I know I’m not a flamethrower, but the fastball has been really good for me, being able to put it in all four corners of the box and being able to locate that,” Harmon said on his season.

Harmon went 5 2/3 innings Tuesday with just a lone hit and walk issued, no earned runs and struck out seven to improve to 3-0 on the year.

That performance helped Petoskey top the Trojans 5-3, then again 13-3 in the nightcap.

For the season, Harmon has commanded a 2.17 ERA, with 13 strikeouts across 19 1/3 innings. Even more impressive, batters are hitting just .132 against the righty. While he’s liked his fastball, it was another pitch working Tuesday.

“This game, in-particular, it was my changeup,” he said. “The changeup was biting down and it was really good for me today.”

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Harmon isn’t the only Northmen pitcher who has gotten off to a solid start, however. Juniors Ben Lansing and Garrett Wodek, both of which saw action Tuesday against the Trojans, have been strong arms to rely on as well.

“We’ve got tons of first-year varsity guys that are throwing,” Harmon said. “They’re having really good outings, lots of innings. Our pitching staff isn’t the biggest or the strongest, but we’ve got a lot of guys that keep us deep.”

Lansing got the start and earned the win in game two, going four innings with two strikeouts, while Wodek then came in to complete the game with two innings and three strikeouts, including no hits allowed.

It was of course another sweep for Petoskey, with the wins moving them to winners of 10 straight and 10-2 overall on the season.

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There’s still a lot to clean up – including fielding issues that led to a combined nine errors Tuesday – though Harmon looks at the tough love from coaches and high standard set for the program as a positive. It comes from building it up to what it is now.

“It’s because we’ve had four or five district championships in a row and we expect to play at a high level, even against bigger schools like TC Central,” Harmon said. “We’re expected to compete and take them down. So I think when we have lulls (like we did), coach gets on us for that, but it’s only to make us better.

“When we get those big leads like at the end of the first, adding to them and building on that. Just burying teams mostly.”

Petoskey struggled to do that in the opener, with four runs in the first only being met by one other run. Haden Janes doubled, Drew Olson singled twice and drove in a run and Tyler Goeldel had an RBI single.

In game two, they took full advantage with the 13 runs, led again by a 2 for 3 game from Ely Pethers, that came with a double and two RBIs.

Brendan Swiss also went 2 for 3 with a double and two RBIs, Janes doubled and had an RBI again and Olson, Lucas O’Donnell and Harmon all had an RBI.

Petoskey next welcomes in Cadillac on Tuesday, April 30 for another BNC tilt.

Contact or send game stats/info to Sports Editor Drew Kochanny at dkochanny@petoskeynews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DrewKochanny, and Instagram, @drewkochanny

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Petoskey baseball's pitchers coming along as Big North play begins