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Pitching depth leads Jenison into baseball regionals

Posted at 11:57 PM, Jun 05, 2018
and last updated 2018-06-05 23:57:56-04

JENISON, Mich -- Strong pitching is a necessity to have success in the Michigan high school state baseball tournament, and 7th-ranked Jenison has it.

The Wildcats (32-3) are led by Central Michigan signee Ian Leatherman, Noah Baragar, Carter Chylek, Derek Vanderjagt and Taylor Witteveen, all seniors.

"We have good pitchers all the way down," Leatherman said, "so it helps a lot to go deep in games, especially when we go eight innings or nine innings."

That staff will be challenged Saturday as it goes to Grand Haven for the Division 1 regional tournament. Jenison plays West Ottawa at 10 a.m..

"It's not just going to take one or two guys. We talked about that from the beginning," first-year head coach Tim Keur said. "There's guys one through five in our starting rotation that have worked hard to get better all year, and we feel good about all five of those guys. So, anybody can do the job on any given day."

Byron Center plays Forest Hills Northern in game two, with the winners meeting later in the day in the championship game.