CHARLEVOIX — Like most kids, Bryce Johnson’s love of baseball started out by playing catch with his dad in the back yard.
Catch progressed to a little more serious pitching, which later moved to Johnson’s dad needing to find an alternative option for his son to flex his hard throwing arm on. Pitches started coming in a little too fast for a casual evening in the back yard.
“I was always pitching to him and then we got to a point where I threw too fast at the age of 11 or 12 and he said he didn’t want to catch for me anymore,” Johnson said with a laugh. “He started getting bruises all over his shins.”
That progress from a young age continued on through Johnson’s high school career at Charlevoix. As a varsity starter on the mound in his early days, to finishing up as a two-time all-state player.
Now, Johnson can add Petoskey News-Review Baseball Player of the Year honors to his fine resume.
It’s a career that came with 268 strikeouts over the last three seasons in 148 innings pitched, including 199 strikeouts in the past two seasons.
He also helped the Rayders to back to back Lake Michigan Conference titles, back to back district titles, a regional title and a trip to MSU for the Division 3 semifinals, playing a part each step along the way.
“It’s always been a lifelong goal and I’ve always liked competing, so when I realized that, at the end, I had all these goals accomplished, it makes me feel even better and ready to move onto the next goals and accomplishments,” Johnson said. “This season was probably the best I could imagine for sure.”
Johnson has always had baseball at the top of his list. While he played football with the Rayders throughout his career, baseball is where he put his focus and energy, traveling over to the Gaylord area a couple times a week to work on his game.
“Really when I started working with Greg Jones is when it took off,” Johnson said. “He was a big part of my pitching. He helped me gain about 5 mph every year up until about I was 15-16. He got me to about 85. He really showed me everything for my command, all that. I used to go there two days a week.”
Johnson regularly worked around the upper 80s and clocked 90 mph on the gun this season – doing so in a game his future Alma College coach was in attendance for – and hopes to only add to it in the coming years.
He finished the 2024 season with 98 strikeouts over 62 2/3 innings, while maintaining an ERA below one, at 0.670. Hitters also batted just .130 against Johnson.
Added to his pitching, Johnson also hit .308, the best of his career, then added 18 RBIs and 20 runs scored, to go along with the second best on-base percentage on the team at .471.
Better yet, he did it all against the toughest schedule the Rayders have seen in years, finishing the regular season with eight teams on the schedule that ended ranked, across all four divisions. A handful then went on to earn postseason hardware.
“I really wanted to bat over .350, but a .300, I’ll take it,” Johnson said. “That’s something to be proud of for sure. If we had an easier schedule everyone would be around .400, but now that we had something to compete with, that’s why it dipped down a bit.”
After helping Rayder baseball achieve things on the diamond they haven’t in 40-plus years and set records along the way, Johnson’s journey in baseball continues on at Alma – with Rayder teammate Troy Nickel – and perhaps bigger stops from there.
He knows he’s not done developing as a pitcher, either. From those days of playing catch with his dad, to wrapping up his career on the mound in a place every high school pitcher dreams about, there’s drive to continue adding to his game.
“Probably add more command to my curve ball and then my change up now that I’m going against better competition of hitters. I’ve really got to change up my arsenal a bit more,” he added. “I need to get my (velocity) up a bit. I want to be around 92-93 mph by the time I get to Alma.”
Just a little faster pitches than dad likely wants to put a glove in front of and try to stop in the back yard.
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
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