Houston County ends regular season on a high note, looks ahead to another postseason run

WARNER ROBINS — The Houston County Bears ended their regular season on a high note, a 9-2 victory against the Jones County Greyhounds on Friday night.

Heading into another playoff run the Bears are 22-7 overall and 12-3 Region 2-5A champions. The young team has grown a lot through 29 games and they looked to be in great shape to host another postseason series in The Garden next week.

“We’re starting to learn a little bit more about how positive energy and being able to stay up is big, and we’re also starting to swing the bats better,” HoCo head coach Matt Hopkins said.

Early in the year the Bears averaged close to 10 strikeouts a game and struggled to support the defense with runs.

Friday they were 12-for-31 (.387) and seven different players ended with at least one hit, three had at least one RBI.

They got a home run from Isaiah Galason and extra base hits from Noah Odom, Peyton Nauss and Galason. They also put plenty of balls in good spots to advance runners or bring them home regardless of if they got on base or not.

“I’m much, much happier with how we’re hitting,” Hopkins said. “For a while there it was very scarce. We were trying to find runs wherever we could, but now we’re having guys that are finally having approach [at the plate], but that’s the thing you expect from a team full of guys that haven’t played a lot.”

“Hopefully they’ve grown, and I feel like we’ve done a good job of developing into a better version of ourselves.”

Last year’s electric reliever Tyson Ganas stepped into a much bigger role at the beginning of the season. Friday’s start showed him go through the ups and come back from the downs as the best pitchers do.

He struck out his first two batters looking, but after a home run things got away from him a little bit. After two walks and a hit-by-pitch his pitching coach and infield payed him a visit, and he went three-up-three-down in the third and fourth innings.

Ryan Maxwell and Jahki Wilson both pitched in relief and were able to keep the ball in the zone. It was an encouraging outing, especially from the younger pitchers.

“It’s really good, especially from the two young guys at the end,” Hopkins said. “One of their biggest problems has been throwing strikes at times, and even [with] Maxwell giving up a couple of hits, he was in the strike zone. We can deal with that.”

“When we’re walking people it’s hard to play defense, and I’m very happy to see those guys starting to really get in the strike zone and let our defense work a little bit.”

Many of the Bears will make their first postseason appearance next week. Given the youth and inexperience of the current roster a playoff run as deep as recent years would be overachieving. The game changes significantly when the stakes are win or go home.

“I’m hoping that the guys that have been [in the playoffs] help guide the ones that haven’t,” Hopkins said. “Being able to get your emotions under control and being able to stay even [is a big part of it], and I think that’s a part of our tough schedule is we’ve played games that were tough and our boys learned how to battle through it. So hopefully that’ll carry us in the playoffs a little while, too.”

UP NEXT

HoCo awaits their first round matchup, which will start on April 24 at home.