Welcome to the 2025 Potomac State Baseball player diary homepage. This season, Sophomores Jake Compton (Mentor, OH / Mentor High School, Chris Harbert (Bridgeport High School / Bridgeport, WV), and Tanner Haskiell (Southern High School / Terra Alta, WV) will take the lead on the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary.
Hello Catamount nation, welcome back to week 5 of the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary for the 2025 season. We bring you the unfortunate news that our season home opener was canceled. It was opportunistic to think we could squeeze in a home game in mid-February, but other years have been kinder than this winter. We will now open on February 28th at Lenoir Community College in North Carolina. We are all hoping that it is a little warmer down there than it has been here lately. In fact, this week, we had to bust up and remove a considerable amount of ice that was on top of the infield tarp before we could remove it. These conditions would have made for a cold season opener, and I think the majority of us like to be able to feel our hands while we are playing baseball.
Although it was a cold week here in Keyser, we didn’t let that stop us from getting our work in as usual. Pitchers progressed to full speed in our live AB’s this week and they went well for the first weekend being full speed. As stated before, these reps are huge to get so both pitchers, catchers, and hitters get some live action before we open. It was nice to see everyone doing well and getting their work in, the only bump in the road was when freshman catcher Logan Rotruck (Keyser, WV) decided that he wanted to try and catch a 92-mph fastball with his forearm, (I don’t think he’ll be trying that again anytime soon). The stitch marks prove the fact that the baseball might have won this one. Although our coaches are some of the best in nation and know what they are doing, I guess they forgot to mention to him that he might want to catch the ball with his glove rather than his forearm.
As most of you know, NCAA division 1 opened this past weekend and it was great to see some past players and teammates from Potomac State playing at the next level. We had the TV in the Batting Performance Center (BPC) rolling all weekend with baseball games and tuned in to watch our old teammates whenever we got the chance. A few former Catamounts we were able to watch include Caden Goodwin (Canton, Ohio) who threw 7.1 inning strong and lead St. Peters University to their first win of the year. We were also able to watch Morgan Little (Keyser, WV) have a stellar weekend for the St. Bonaventure Bonnies.
To burn some free time after practice our team showed up to support the Men’s basketball team. The men’s basketball team had a big matchup vs Montgomery College who was ranked 12th in the country in NJCAA D2. Although the Catamounts were heavy underdogs, they pulled out the big upset with the entire baseball present and supporting them.
With each day we creep closer to what we all look forward to- opening day. There is something special about finally, after working hard since August, that we get to take the field for real. While we are excited to get to opening day, we know that what really matters is taking that opening day energy throughout the season.