H. Jackson, Bears shut out Jones

mbrown@sunmulti.com
Jones County, not intentionally for certain, gave an inch.

Houston County took a mile.

Thanks to a burst of four straight unearned runs in the fourth inning, Houston’s baseball Bears shut out Jones County High at home Thursday 8-0. That concluded play for both teams in the 2-AAAAA sub-region that Houston County already claimed as regular-season champions.

Northside High was particularly interested in the outcome, for it made certain that the Eagles would be the No. 2 seed for the whole region playoffs and play at home against a team from Columbia County. Jones County went to 4-5 in the sub-region, and Northside (4-4 going into its last league game Friday with Warner Robins) owns the head-to-head tiebreaker by winning the three-game season series with the Greyhounds.

The Bears improved to 8-1 on senior night and avenged their only loss in the sub-region, which happened at Jones County April 2.

What deflated Jones’ hopes of a second straight upset happened in that fourth inning. The visitors were only trailing 1-0 as the Bears were at the plate. Pitcher Brandon Spivey was on his way to a three-up, three-down turn when he struck out Josh Profit.

There was, however, a matter of a dropped third strike by the catcher. What should have been a simple throw to first base became complicated as the baseball was dropped and rolled away from the first baseman.
It became a whole new inning for Spivey, who saw Profit steal second base without a throw and then walked Justin Jones, the leadoff batter. Hunt Smith faced a full-count pitch and singled to score Profit. Blake Jackson was down 0-2 when he singled home Jones for 3-0.

Catcher David Umphreyville became the fourth straight Bear to reach base after the error, and his single to left brought in two more.

Houston starting pitcher Hunter Jackson went 6 1/3 shutout innings with three hits allowed. He walked three and struck out four.

The middle infield behind him had a particularly good day with the exception of one hiccup in the second inning. It was, before that, a nice flip from Dalton Carriker at second base to Jones, the shortstop, for a double play to erase Jackson’s walk to start the first inning.

Blake Jackson’s RBI single in the bottom half staked the home team to that 1-0 advantage.

Jones County, though, appeared to get a break to start the second inning. At first, it looked like Justin Jones had the first-out assist on a tough play against Chandler Green. Greyhound coach Barry Veal appealed that the throw took first baseman Hunter Phillips’ foot off the base.

The home plate umpire agreed. The Houston senior pitcher, though, got out of the frame despite giving up one more hit. He also retired six of the next seven he faced with two assists thrown by B. Jackson at third base.
With the Bears taking the bigger lead, H. Jackson gave up two hits over the fifth and sixth innings, three assists credited to the shortstop Jones.

Profit singled in a run in Houston’s half of the fifth, and in the sixth Mark Lumsden followed three walks with a two-out, two-run double.

Coach Jason Brett pulled H. Jackson for Mark Bell with two on and one out in the topf of the seventh. Bell faced just one hitter, who hit the baseball to Jones for a 6-3 double play.

• Prior to the game, Brett recognized his senior class. One special moment was for Carriker when his father Trent, who is in Texas receiving radiation treatments, sent a recorded message especially for his son.

• Jones had a huge day at the plate Tuesday when Houston County completed a three-game sweep of Warner Robins High. He had a three-run home run as the Bears cruised to the win 8-3 at the Bear Den.
Jordan McIlwain also had a start of 6 1/3 innings with seven strikeouts. Conner Smith finished it off retiring the only two he would face.

Hunt Smith and Profit each had an RBI hit, and Carriker doubled.

Warner Robins’ A.J. Priaulx had a solo home run and two singles while Jarrod Crum doubled for an RBI.

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