Houston County dominates region doubleheader against Coffee

WARNER ROBINS — Houston County (17-4, 10-2 Region 2-5A) finished their most dominant region series on Friday with 10-0 and 12-0 victories against Coffee (12-9, 5-7 Region).

The Bears benefitted from a total of 12 walks and five hit-by-pitches in their 38 at-bats in the doubleheader — that’s 45%.

The Trojans’ pitching staff, especially in Game 3, had a hard time finding the zone. Their starter was pulled after 0 IP (35 pitches), six walks, two hit-by-pitches and eight earned runs. After the pitching change Tyson Ganas floated a grand slam over the left field wall to put HoCo up 9-0.

Apart from the obvious region sweep, another good outcome of the games were getting freshman Jahki Wilson a good inning on the mound.

Wilson’s last start went poorly; for him to come away with a scoreless, one-hit inning to close out a region game was important mentally.

“It’s big, and he’s been what you expect a kid that just turned 14 to do. He’s a young kid,” Bears head coach Matt Hopkins said. “He’s up and down and you’re going to get great outings where you see what you saw at Veterans, and then the next week he kind of melts, and we’re just trying to develop him into something better. And he’s got four years to develop and that’s what we’re doing with I’m right now.”

“We’re talking him through it, and I told him, I think he’s been better out of the bullpen even…I was glad to get him an inning there at the end.”

He followed another solid outing from Ryan Maxwell, who is establishing himself as the chosen Game 3 pitcher.

The sophomore threw four innings and only gave up one hit, striking out four batters and walking one. The primary performance metric for Hopkins is his ability to throw strikes, which can’t be taken for granted as the pitching rotation becomes exhausted late in the series.

“He’s throwing more strikes…that’s what we’ve been looking for in our Game 3 guys,” Hopkins said. “You got to throw strikes. Defensively we’ll make enough plays, but we can’t put free guys on base, and he did a really good job of getting ahead in counts and making them count, and then getting us a lead and then just holding onto it.”

The offense, more or less, performed well. They didn’t chase pitches or get impatient as ball after ball came across the plate. Hopkins even thinks they could have been more aggressive.

“We got to start finding the blood in the water,” Hopkins said. “I think at times, even in Game 1 [of the doubleheader] we went up really big and then we changed our approach. We had a chance to end it sooner than we did, and then [Game 3] I thought we did a pretty good job even after we went up.”

“We took some good swings and then we were able to clear the bench and get a lot of guys some varsity experience. I thought overall it was pretty good.”

The sweep puts HoCo 1.5 games ahead of Thomas County Central in second place. Their final region series is against Lee County, the current fifth place team (11-9, 4-7 Region).

The Bears’ schedule is lighter next week with two games in Tallahassee, Florida (Lincoln and Chiles). Hopkins hopes for some good reserve reps, rest and team bonding during the spring break trip.

“Good growth reps…we’re going down there to win those games, but we’re going to try to get some guys some meaningful innings and some reps and maybe a little rest for a few of our guys that are kind of beat down. But more than anything, just to go bond as a team. It’s another good moment for us to continue to come together and becomes a better version of what we are.”