CALLED UP TO COOLRAY : Houston County takes care of Loganville in two to make third championship game in five years

WARNER ROBINS — For the third time in five years Houston County is headed to the Atlanta area to play for a state championship.

In 2021 it was Truist Park, in 2023 and now 2025 the Bears will take to Coolray Field to fight to bring another championship trophy to Warner Robins.

To do it they had to beat Loganville, who’s three-peated twice since 2017.

Three observations from Tuesday’s semifinals series:

The Red Devils did not go quietly

Although it was a clean sweep, the Red Devils did anything but go quietly.

Down 4-1 in the top of the seventh of Game 1 the last three of the order were due for Loganville; They had no hits and a strikeout through six at-bats between them.

Jake Boland stepped up to the plate and took strike one looking, but fouled off the next four pitches.

In Game 2 the Red Devils amped up the aggression on a shaky Max Willhide. He had all three of his walks in the second inning, and Loganville scored on Brantley Carter’s lengthy at-bat that saw two wild pitches and a passed ball.

Carter fouled off three pitches in a row before taking three balls in a row and getting the walk.

That prompted a visit from HoCo coach Matt Hopkins, who tried to ground his day two starter.

“Just to stay within himself and trust it and not try to do too much and understand that we’re going to score runs. He just doesn’t need to try to pitch his way outta things he doesn’t have to,” Hopkins said.

In the fifth and seventh innings Loganville got ahold of the ball at every at-bat save one walk. If the Bears’ defense, particularly the outfield, wasn’t what it is this series could have easily gone the other way.

“They were doing a good job of battling at the plate,” Hopkins said. “I didn’t think Max was as sharp as he’s been and he’s been great all year. I just thought that he was having trouble getting a feel for his pitches and it was leading to deeper counts where he was getting behind, and it’s hard to pitch when you’re behind.”

(Not) getting over the emotional high

It’s no secret that HoCo’s series against Pope may as well have been their state championship game; The recent history between the teams, the hostile atmosphere in Marietta, it had all the makings of a great championship matchup.

But, it was the quarterfinals. At best there are two more series after that, and the Bears didn’t come out on Tuesday like they knew that.

Early into the question comparing last week’s effort to this week’s, Hopkins emphatically shook his head before his response:

“We had a big talk I think in the fifth inning of Game 1, and it was talking about the energy,” he said. “Why were we attacking with passion last week, and it felt like we were just going through the motions today. I told ‘em I don’t think we played even close to our best baseball. I thought that we almost took for granted the game a little bit and just put it in cruise control. We were lucky enough to get the breaks we needed to win.”

The Bears’ defense has been good enough to float through games more than once this season. The infield had its mistakes and the Red Devils got a few to drop in the outfield but HoCo got enough to get over the hump.

Game 1’s moment was the three-run fourth inning with three RBI singles from Noah Odom, Vick Gann and Isaiah Galason.

The fifth inning of Game 2 is when HoCo took the lead and never looked back, despite the difficulties.

Galason hit a beam that would have driven home the go-ahead runs, but the officials called it back because it hit the second-base umpire. Galason was granted the hit, but the runners were brought back.

The first pitch after that (and a pitching change) was a hit-by-pitch that tied the game, then Buffone’s grounder scored one more. Galason scored on a wild pitch in the next at-bat for HoCo’s fourth run.

Packed The Garden

If you drove by Houston County High School on Tuesday, you’d see a parking lot filled to the brim with cars and a baseball field full of people packed like sardines.

All along the outfield walls, in the stands, even in the extra bleachers brought in to seat additional fans, it was packed.

Houston County baseball asked their fans to be there, and they showed up in the biggest game The Garden has seen all year.

“Well we were hoping we would [have that support], and they showed up,” Hopkins said of the Houston County community. “It’s a big environment. [You have Loganville] that’s been here before [in 2016] and it was a big game then and people wanna be a part of it. And it was really nice to have that atmosphere. It’s what you play for, it just adds an element to it.”

The Bears will look for that same support as they head up to Coolray Field in Lawrenceville, where Hopkins anticipates having an easier time “selling the series” to his team.

“And you’ve had another week to get over the Pope thing,” Hopkins said on playing at Coolray helping amp up the Bears effort. “Our guys don’t have a history with Loganville. They didn’t, only the coaches on both sides do and some of the fans, and so there’s nothing that’s really a big get up. It’s the game to get to the game you want and we were able to get there and now that we’re going I don’t think it’s gonna be hard to get these guys motivated for what’s coming.”