Prep baseball: Harmon leads Novato past Archie Williams

Novato High’s sophomore ace J.P. Harmon admits there’s not a lot of analytics involved in his pitching starts.

Novato High’s sophomore ace J.P. Harmon admits there’s not a lot of analytics involved in his pitching starts.

Mostly the hard-throwing right-hander relies on raw power.

Such was the case on a cool, windy Friday in San Anselmo.

Harmon scattered four hits and struck out five in a complete-game shutout as the Hornets blanked host Archie Williams 6-0 in a key MCAL baseball game as the push for postseason berths heats up.

“My mindset when I’m pitching is to not really think about anything except pounding the (catcher’s) glove,” said Harmon, who was also 3 for 3 at the plate with three runs batted in.

Novato (10-6, 7-3 MCAL), which blanked the Peregrine Falcons (8-7, 6-4) for the second time this week and also ended their six-game winning streak, are a team to be reckoned with despite last week’s two losses against first-place Redwood.

“We’re a young team,” Novato coach Jason Searle said. “We’re mostly sophomores and a lot of these guys have been playing together since youth. They like playing together and they really push each other.”

Harmon, who walked three batters in the first two innings, said he had trouble manicuring the mound to his liking at the outset.

Despite the free passes, Novato’s defense came up clutch in both the first two innings. An around-the-horn double play, started by third baseman Trevor Cleary, ended the threat in the first, and a pick-off play at second base erased the uprising in the second.

“Good defense always seems to get the offense going,” Harmon said.

Actually, the Novato offense self-started in the first sparked by leadoff batter Gio Castaing, who poked Sam Black’s first pitch up the middle for a single.

With one out, Harmon rattled a liner into the left field corner for a double and Castaing, who was going on the pitch, scored from first base.

Novato hitters played both little-ball and big-ball as the game progressed.

The second inning was all about the tiny stuff after Griffin Vorhaus led off by stinging a one-hopper off the right field fence for a double.

Jonah Koreen sacrificed Vorhaus to third with a perfect bunt and Joshua DeVore encored with another beautiful bunt on a suicide-squeeze play to drive in the second run of the game.

In the meantime, Harmon dodged back-to-back two-runners-on-base adventures in the third and fourth before finally finding his groove in the fifth. He retired six of the next eight batters and never allowed a baserunner beyond second base.

“I liked my fastball today,” Harmon said. “It was a lively fastball.”

Leading 3-0 in the sixth, Novato plugged into a power surge against Archie Williams’ relief pitcher Peter Irwin, who struck out four of the first five batters he faced.

But with two outs in the sixth, Castaing legged out an infield hit.

Cohen Garcia stepped to the plate and crushed Irwin’s first pitch far over the left-field fence directly into a fierce blowing wind for a two-run homer.

Fittingly enough, Harmon finished what he started by driving in Novato’s final run with another homer over the left-field fence.

“I wasn’t even thinking about back-to-back homers,” Harmon said. “Both the double and the home run I hit were on low sliders. But I was just trying to hit the ball to the right side and get something going.”

Harmon took care of business in the final inning, shrugging off Arlo Maury’s one-out single to close out the victory with a strikeout and a ground out.

“J.P. is a man on fire right now,” Searle said. “He’s been hitting unbelievably lately. He’s a really good two-way player.”

Designated hitter Miki Accomazzo had two of the Falcons’ four singles.