Houston County baseball throws combined no-hitter to down Alexander

WARNER ROBINS — The Houston County Bears (2-0) kicked off their first game on Saturday with a 4-0 win over the Alexander Cougars (0-4) in a combined no-hitter, continuing their great play on the mound.

Here are three observations:

Combined no-hitter

Max Willhide started on Saturday and threw five innings to record 10 strikeouts, no hits, no walks, no runs and no earned runs. A clean game.

Willhide did well locating his pitches, getting Alexander to reach on swings. They also swung early in anticipation of fastballs, but Willhide’s off-speed ball took care of plenty of batters.

Westen Ard came in for two innings of relief and also recorded three strikeouts to bring HoCo’s total on the day to 13.

“He’d been our best pitcher in the preseason as far as locating his pitches, and I thought the first two times we’ve thrown him scrimmages wise lately, he’s been trying to do too much,” said HoCo coach Matt Hopkins on Willhide. “We’ve been working through it, it’s what you want to see as they get better, as they keep going. I thought today he trusted his command and located, and when we locates he’s got three pitches that are really good. He’s got hitters off balance, and he’s getting strikeouts.”

The defense is as good as anticipated

To have a complete no-hitter, you have to have a good defense behind the pitcher.

Defense has been one of the Bears’ strengths for years now, particularly the outfield in the last couple.

Last night Vick Gann snagged several key outs in right field to keep North Oconee at bay, and Kendall Jackson had an incredible diving catch in left field to secure the first out of the seventh inning.

HoCo has one of the best defenses around, and Hopkins is pleased with what he’s seen so far as they experiment with rotations.

“We’re still trying to find the right rotation. We’re going to play a different outfield all three games this weekend and see where everybody fits best,” Hopkins said. “We feel good where everybody is, but, just special athletes that played a lot of ball and good things can happen when we just let them put the ball in play.”

The offense is taking some time to warm up

A common theme in the preseason scrimmage against Perry and the first two regular season games is the offense starting slow.

This isn’t a new problem for HoCo; Last year when they had more power at the plate they swung for the fences and often forgot to just advance the runners on base.

This year they’re suffering again from their approach at the plate, though it’s not something Hopkins is concerned about two games in.

“I think that we’re just trying to do too much, starting to guess a little bit, trying to get a pitch that we want and we’re pulling off of it and were not staying through the ball,” Hopkins said. “Just some of our approach stuff that happens early, you get a little bit in your head and you’re not settled in and it’s a lot of emotions to deal with.”

“I know we’re going to be fine, it’s just really frustrating getting there, and I looked up and we’ve got 11 hits and I’m like, ‘Where did those come from?’” Hopkins added. “Some of them were what you would call fairly cheap hits. But I just want us to be better in our approach situationally, when it’s runners in scoring position and things like that. But overall we’re still working and building. Got one more game to try and get better.”

UP NEXT

The Bears will finish their weekend with a game against 3A semifinalist Mary Persons at 5:30 p.m.