Noah Harden wasn’t overpowering on the mound for Polk County on Tuesday night.
He WAS dominant, though.
Harden threw a complete-game shutout as the Wolverines blanked Mountain Heritage 6-0 in a Western Highlands Conference matchup.
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“Josh Money, our pitching coach, is unbelievable with our guys,” Polk County coach Billy Alm said. “We don’t have any guys who are high-velo. But we’re able to throw three and four pitches for strikes. He really worked with Noah yesterday on his curveball/slider, and it really showed tonight. The break on it was unbelievable.”
Harden seemed to get better as the game went on, with all three of his strikeouts, with two called third striikes, coming in the sixth and seventh innings. He allowed just six baserunners all night on four hits, a walk, and an error.
“I was really just hitting my spots,” Harden said. “I’ve been working with Coach Money on certain things, and they really just clicked tonight. My curveball was working really good tonight, and that helped me.”
And while he was never really in any significant trouble, the Wolverines kept finding ways to help Harden out.
After an error allowed a runner to reach in the second, catcher Gavin Waldbillig erased him with a double play, catching a pop-up and firing to first to double-up the runner. In the fourth, the Cougars lost a runner on a stolen base attempt when the batter was called out for interference. And in the fifth, Mountain Heritage’s best chance to score came on a walk and a single to put runners on first and second with two outs. An errant pickoff bounced away from first base, but Aaron Jackson corralled it and gunned the runner out at second to end the threat.
“It just felt like the game was on my side really,” Harden said with a smile. “Those helped out a lot.”
Alm said solid defense was the Wolverines’ focus.
“We’ve got to play good defense, because we don’t have that overpowering pitcher,” he said. “We preach that to them. We have to do everything we can do to get out of that big inning. And these guys have been great at it.”
Harden was more than solid down the stretch. He got a fly out, a strikeout and a popup in the sixth and used just 11 pitches in the seventh, getting two strikeouts and a groundout around a harmless single.
Harden did enough to help himself at the plate in the first inning. He launched a double into the gap to drive in Gunnar Alm, who had led off the game being hit by a pitch, advanced to third on an error on the play, and later scored on Alex Perry’s grounder as the Wolverines built a 2-0 lead.
Polk (7-4, 4-1) tacked on three more in the third as Alm absolutely torched a home run over the right field fence for a 3-0 lead. Perry and Nate Fagan reached on back-to-back singles, and both scored when Waldbillig reached on an error.
Waldbillig helped manufacture an insurance run in the fifth. He walked, advanced when Cooper Meyer reached and scored on a wild pitch for the final 6-0 count.
Alm was happy to see contributions at the plate up and down the lineup.
“Obviously, the last few games Gunnar’s been dialed in,” Alm said. “He’s hitting balls hard everywhere. We put Noah behind him, and he’s been protecting Gunnar and he’s done a great job at that. They’ve intentionally walked Gunnar a lot and Noah’s been making them pay for it.
“Another big one is Cooper Meyer. He doesn’t hit the ball out of the infield and he’s 3-for-4 every night. Nate Fagan leads the team in hits, and it’s just line drive after line drive. He doesn’t look like your typical four-hole hitter, but he just gets up there and gets it done.”
