Tyson Ganas lifts Houston County to their fifth region championship in six years with two bombs against Lee County

WARNER ROBINS — For the fifth time in six years, the Houston County Bears are region champions.

That’s something HoCo has grown accustomed to under coach Matt Hopkins, though they took a brief hiatus last year as Tift County claimed the crown. They only needed one win at home against Lee County to clinch the championship, but won both anyway 6-0 and 9-0.

“It feels great. It’s five out of the last six seasons, and last year I thought we should have had it,” Hopkins said. “We won every series, but the way it shook out we didn’t get it. And you feel a little bit slighted, you like winning it. So it was really nice for our guys to come out and focus this year and take care of business, and bring it back to Houston County.”

Three observations from Friday’s region championship doubleheader:

Liberating baseballs and lifting the Bears to victory

The flag at The Garden’s center field fence was flailing on Friday as the wind blew at a steady 15 miles per hour with gusts up to 25. If you know anything about the boys in white, it’s that they love to see that flag moving.

Through the first three innings HoCo swung for the fences to no avail. Heading into the bottom of the fourth Hopkins asked his dugout, “Who’s going to take charge for me?”

Ethan Buffone finally put a ball on the ground to get on base, and then Tyson Ganas came up to bat and did something that he, apparently, hadn’t even done in batting practice.

He got ahold of the first pitch that came across the plate and it soared over to left field. Lee County’s left fielder ran back and leaped for it, but the baseball disappeared into the trees as Ganas broke the drought and put the Bears on the board.

He couldn’t help but let out a yell as he headed from first to second base, and on his way to third he pointed over to left field and looked at Hopkins with a huge grin.

Hopkins couldn’t help but have a grin of his own when asked about the sophomore.

“I don’t know if he’s ever hit a home run in batting practice,” he said. “He did what we asked. He got short to the ball and stayed through it, and the first one he really hit.”

That wasn’t the only one he got, either. In the fifth inning he sent a towering ball to the same spot, though the wind helped that one over the fence to put the Bears up 6-0. Ganas had all five of their RBI in Game 1 of the doubleheader.

“Now that second one might’ve been Mother Nature helping him out a little bit, bit you still gotta get the bat to it to make it happen,” Hopkins said. “It’s just a guy stepping up that we haven’t really relied on offensively. And when that happens with our team, it’s really going to make us that much stronger.”

Big swings without much to show for it

With the wind blowing as much as it was, you had a feeling the Bears would come out swinging.

And swing they did. They had seven fly outs or pop ups in the first three innings of Game 1, despite the Trojans’ Ethan Powell sticking to the boundaries and not throwing too many fastballs.

“What approach,” Hopkins halfway joked when asked about Game 1. “Their approach was, oh the wind’s blowing out, I’m gonna see how far I can hit it. And our swings got big even though they weren’t throwing hard, and it just led to a lot of bad swings and a lot of cheap outs is what I’d say.”

“Luckily Will [Allen is] up there throwing up zeros and gave us time to settle into the game…We were trying to hit home runs. I’ll just be honest with what they were trying to do. Anytime you see the flag blowing like that, that’s all they can think about”

Ganas’s home runs won Game 1 for the Bears, but in Game 2 they had more of a balanced effort.

Kendall Jackson and Logan Elbie each got a home run, but five different batters drove in at least one run as HoCo came away with a 9-0 win.

Hitting their stride at the right time

This year’s team suffered a lot of the same issues as last year’s; There were times when they lacked focus or energy, and sleepwalked their way through games.

Last week at LakePoint, though, it felt like they hit their stride.

They defeated nationally ranked Etowah 5-1 and East Coweta 9-6 before sweeping Lee County in the region championship series. They also preserved their perfect defense at home — they haven’t allowed a single run in a region doubleheader at home this season.

They’re still not perfect. Friday’s undisciplined approach at the plate is one area that will. (likely) bite them if it shows up in a playoff series.

However, they’ve showed a lot of growth from the beginning of the season.

“I think we’re having some guys that weren’t stepping up earlier that are stepping up a little bit and carrying the load,” Hopkins said. “Both our pitchers tonight were lights out. Lee County’s been really good and they’ve been doing a good job of hitting, and I think we’ve started to get a little bit of that swagger on the mound back.”

“We’ve been kind of, the word I’d use is picking and not really attacking,” he continued. “I think that we had a mindset shift last week at LakePoint. We really challenged our guys to start getting back in the zone and attacking hitters, and they did a really good job at that today. You can see what happens when we do. We’ve got a good defense and good things are gonna happen. So hopefully we’ll keep this momentum riding all the way as far as we can go.”

UP NEXT

HoCo will host Luella on Tuesday, April 15 for one of their two final regular season games. That game will start at 6 p.m.