NORTON SHORES – When a pitcher starts having arm pain at the tender age of 11 or 12, the suspicion is that he might be wise to find another position.

That was an issue for Mona Shores’ Bryson Belanger well before high school, but instead of giving up on pitching, he found a new arm angle – one you don’t see much at any level of baseball.

The right-hander developed an underarm delivery and became what is popularly known as a “submarine pitcher.”

The new motion has been working well for Belanger for several years. His arm pain went away, he learned how to throw from the unique slot with control and velocity, and his delivery has become a major advantage over hitters who are not used to seeing the ball come from such an odd angle.

“I was around 12, my arm slot was sidearm then, my arm started hurting, and my coach with the West Michigan Riptide wanted me to try submarine,” said Belanger, 17, a junior on the Sailor squad. “I threw that way a couple times, my arm felt great, my coach wanted me to keep throwing it, and it just kept getting better and better.”

Belanger doesn’t throw from the submarine slot 100 percent of the time. He mixes in a few overhand pitches, here and there, to keep hitters guessing and off balance.

He sticks mostly to fastballs and curveballs from the submarine motion, and sometimes uses a knuckleball from the overhand slot. He’s currently experimenting with a knuckleball from his submarine delivery, which he thinks could really screw some hitters up.

One big advantage is that batters don’t face him enough to get very used to his delivery. He became a closer for his Riptide travel teams, and he’s settling into the same role with the Sailors this season.

That means he usually pitches an inning or two at the most.

“It’s similar to when hitters face a left-handed pitcher, because you don’t see many of them at this level, and this is even more of an advantage than that,” said Mona Shores varsity baseball coach Brandon Bard. “He pitches in a late role, so it’s not something hitters are going to become accustomed to. He’s only going to pitch to the batting order one time through.”

A lot of area high school hitters will be seeing Belanger for the very first time this year, because he hasn’t been able to pitch a great deal over the past two seasons.

He would have played junior varsity as a freshman in 2020, but the season was wiped out by COVID. He did play JV ball last year, but he didn’t get a chance to pitch a whole lot due to a couple of random injuries.

First he fractured his hip while playing basketball last spring, in a pretty unusual way.

“I ran into a tree playing basketball,” he said. “I went up for a layup, I tripped over an electrical post and ran into a tree. It took about six months to fully heal.”

Belanger was able to return to the JV squad after that injury, but then he suffered a concussion in a game.

“I was playing third and was I was going for a foul ball,” he said. “Sometime yelled that I had room to catch it, I didn’t, and I ran into the fence.”

Belanger was called up to varsity for the state tournament last spring, pitched well in one game, but never got the chance to do more because the Sailors were eliminated in districts.

He got off to a very good start this season, however, picking up a save in Mona Shores’ exciting 3-2 opening game victory over Montague.

He demonstrated that he could handle a pressure situation, which is a necessary attribute for any closer.

He came into the game in the top of the seventh inning (the last inning in high school baseball). Mona Shores was clinging to a one-run lead with one out and Montague runners on first and second.

The situation became even more challenging when a ball was hit back to the mound and Belanger fielded it, but froze in a moment of indecision, and all three runners were safe.

But he bore down and struck out the next batter for the second out, then coaxed a game-ending grounder, preserving a 3-2 win.

“I just had to stick through it,” Belanger said calmly after the game. “I knew I was going to get through it. I just knew I had to stay dialed in and just throw strikes and let the game play out the way it would.”

Coach Bard knows Belanger is a unique tool for his pitching staff, particularly coming out of the bullpen, and expects him to do very well over the rest of the season.

“It’s rare,” Bard said about the submarine delivery. “I don’t think it’s something that’s taught. Some pro guys make that move later on in their careers, but it’s definitely rare at this age level. He’s had a lot of success with it so far.”