Houston County to face Pope in rematch of 2023 6A state championship

The Houston County Bears will take a trip to Marietta on Saturday, May 11 at 2 p.m. to take on the Pope Greyhounds in a rematch of last year’s finals.

If the Bears do make it past Pope to get to this year’s finals, they’ll face either Etowah or Blessed Trinity, both of whom they had to dispatch on the way to face the Greyhounds in 2023.

Both teams lost impactful seniors, and though they have new players stepping up their place, play styles will be different this time around.

“Dynamics have changed a little bit. How we both play offensively is a little bit different,” HoCo coach Matt Hopkins said. “They’re not going to bang it around the park as much as they were necessarily last year, and the same for us. You’re going to see a little bit different brand of baseball.”

One thing that won’t be different is facing Augusta University commit Dawson Jones in the series.

Jones started game one last year, and the Bears ran him off the mound after 2.1 innings with five earned runs on three hits and five walks.

“[Jones may] have a chip on his shoulder, wanting to have a little bit of revenge if you will,” Hopkins said. “He’s a very experienced pitcher. Good left hander, mid 80s with good off-speed pitches.”

Hopkins is also expecting to face Georgia Southern commit Ethan Garrett, who’ll be a new face.

“A guy that we didn’t face last year but was one of their arms, [Myers] is a [Georgia Southern] commit right hander that’s high 80s to low 90s and some good off-speed pitches,” Hopkins said. “Then they’ll couple that with some guys behind them that are also very competitive and strong, they rely on their starters the same as anybody does. They’ve got some really good arms that they’re going to throw at us and hopefully all the left handers that we’ve seen lately is going to pay dividends.”

Both teams have a lot of returning talent, despite losing big names last year.

Eli Stephens, Christian Wahiwe, Vick Gann, Hudson Sherman, Ethan Buffone, Ty Waters and Will Allen all played in last year’s championship series.

On the other side there are names like: Jack Myers (Georgia Southern commit), Jones, Andrew Nelms, John Stuetzer (Florida State commit) and Tanner Morneau who have been here before.

Though the Bears have struggled with energy and motivation this year through region play, and some in the playoffs, Hopkins doesn’t believe he’ll have to push them too much further at this stage of the postseason.

“You don’t really have to provide a ton of motivation at this point, the carrots right there,” Hopkins said. “If you want to play for all of it, you only have a week and a half left. You’ve been doing this for four or five months, we’re all tired, and at this point we preach it’s like a marathon. I even asked them the other day after the game, ‘What does a marathon runner do at the end?’ They gas it out, and they don’t leave anything left.”

“Win the middle innings, those are typically where games are won and lost. Everybody looks at the beginning and the end, but it’s usually the middle where things are decided,” he continued. “We’ll go up there and hopefully not settle. I think that’s the hard thing with doubleheaders is if you win game one, it’s really easy to settle, especially if you have a lead in game two in the middle.”

First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 11. Game two will follow game one.