By Brent Alwine
PBR Michigan Scouting Director

Tanner Allison 2014 LHP/OF Portland High School

Most high-school athletes dream about getting to play out their senior year, knowing that they can lay it all out on the line with the possible hope to play at the next level. Unfortunately for Left-hander Tanner Allison, what proved to just originally be shoulder soreness proved to be much more. While playing baseball in the summer of 2013, his right non-throwing shoulder was giving him pain and discomfort.  After having the shoulder looked at, it was diagnosed as a torn labrum and ultimately decided to get surgery. Tanner thinks the injury originally happened during the semifinals of the state football championship as a junior but isn’t 100% sure.

When talking to Tanner about the shoulder, he mainly said that the injury didn’t affect his pitching as much as it did his swing. Instead of playing through the injury more, Tanner decided to get surgery on it and to focus on baseball and to skip his senior year of football. Tanner said it was a very tough decision to not play his senior season of football, especially given that he was the QB for his state championship football team the year prior. During his junior year though he was being recruited by multiple schools for baseball and football. All this came up before Tanner realized the actual extent of his injury to his shoulder. Grand Valley State heavily recruited him for football as a QB while Western Michigan recruited him to be a two way player. Western Michigan offered Tanner a scholarship to be a two-way player for the Broncos and Tanner accepted the offer.

Since the tear was on his non-throwing shoulder, Tanner’s rehab was not as long as it would be for a throwing shoulder. The surgery was in July and Tanner said he started throwing in December, Tanner is now practicing and expects to be on the mound come Portland’s season opener.

Portland High expects to be a very solid club this season with Tanner and two of his teammates already committed to NAIA Davenport University, Outfielder Austin Brandt and Catcher Andrew Click.