Houston County baseball looking to amp up the effort in final games of regular season

WARNER ROBINS — The Houston County Bears (24-5) are in their final week of the regular season and are looking to light a fire under themselves as they enter the postseason.

Their second to last regular season game was a 12-1 win over the Luella Lions. Ethan Buffone walked the game off in the fifth inning with a two-run home run to left field.

Three observations from Tuesday’s contest:

Regaining confidence on the bump

Baseball is unique in the fact that you have a lot of time to think.

With football, when the play ends you hustle back to the line of scrimmage or the huddle and get the next play call. In basketball the action never stops, you’re always moving, same with soccer.

But with baseball, you have plenty of time to get in your own head when things aren’t going well. That’s true for pitchers and hitters, it’s why the mind games between the two are an important aspect of the sport.

Tucker Hale has had some shaky moments in his senior season, the lowest of them when he was pulled after seven pitches in the series finale against Lee County.

Only one of those seven was a strike, and the dugout was somber as he made his way down from the mound.

That’s enough for most to get into your own head, and Hale is no different. He had an opportunity to start the game against Luella and begin repairing his confidence, something Bears coach Matt Hopkins is assured he’ll be able to do.

“The thing is, Tuck’s been there before and he’s been good for us. This isn’t the first time he’s done it,” Hopkins said. “Baseball’s one of those weird sports where there’s just so much with confidence and you’re out there on an island by yourself…You’ve got a lot of time to think and you got a lot of time between games and sometimes the worst thing you got is your own brain.”

“That’s what we’ve just been challenging him to do. You’ve been pitching, you’ve done this before, just relax and try to have fun and you’ll come along,” he continued. “I did see some things tonight that look better than where he’s been at the last couple weeks.”

Hale started against the Lions and pitched three innings, picking up the win in the process.

He still had moments where he struggled to find the strike zone, and walked three batters, but he also finished with six strikeouts.

After every strike thrown he got positive feedback from the fans and his teammates. After his fifth strikeout to end the top of the second he seemed to hold back a smile.

It’s far from over, but Hale made a big step in regaining some confidence on Tuesday.

Patient at-bats

Luella is a team that, if you let them, they’ll walk you.

When they came to town to play Perry, they walked the Panthers 10 times.

HoCo wasn’t quite patient enough to draw some of those early, but they ended up being walked six times, and scored eight runs in the third inning to put the game in mercy rule territory.

Some of that was maybe the flag waving in center field, or senior night emotions, or the Bears not respecting their opponent enough according to Hopkins.

“Early on I get really disappointed with our guys. It’s one of those things where they almost gotta see a national ranking or it’s gotta be a big rivalry for us to just really get up and treat the game like it’s supposed to be treated,” Hopkins said. “Also senior night’s always tricky. There’s so many emotions. Apparently the moms picked out songs for their kids tonight and I didn’t know that was coming. So it’s just hard to navigate.”

HoCo quickly scored a run in the first as Kendall Jackson reached on an error and Vick Gann’s triple brought him home as the Lions’ center fielder couldn’t get ahold of the fly ball.

But after that, things stalled for a minute before the eight-run third. The Bears left the bases loaded in the second after drawing two walks and a hit-by-pitch.

“I though that we early on were pressing a little bit and just, when they took second base with us not even paying attention, that’s not stuff that happens to us,” Hopkins said. “I thought we got woke up a little bit after the first inning and that allowed us to have those big innings.

Selling the big moment

As Hopkins mentioned, the Bears don’t always treat games how they should be.

Coaches in any sport always tell you to treat every opponent with respect, and in baseball that’s even more important. It’s a sport that can be random. Bats can get hot or cold, same with pitchers, and for the most part anybody can beat anybody on any given night.

But, despite that, HoCo has come out flat in plenty of games this season if the matchup doesn’t hold a lot of pressure. Pressure creates diamonds, and the Bears have shone plenty, but Hopkins hopes he can get them to do it more consistently.

“I’ve gotta do a better job as a coach of selling it as well,” Hopkins said. “I think that as we’re getting down the stretch here, every moment’s big and the playoffs, anybody can beat you. I think that they’ll do a good job knowing the task. I think every year at this point, we’re really just looking forward to the playoffs and hopefully we don’t look past a really talented Richmond Hill team tomorrow.”

UP NEXT

The Bears will play Richmond Hill on Wednesday, April 16 at Georgia College and State University