Houston County’s offense falters in doubleheader split with Oconee County

WARNER ROBINS — The Houston County Bears (5-1) lost for the first time this season in a 3-1 final to the Oconee County Warriors (3-2) in the second part of a doubleheader that went eight innings.

The offense faltered after coming out strong in a 9-0 Game 1 victory to open the day.

Here are three observations from Saturday’s doubleheader:

HoCo preparing for region with tough opponents early

Playing an easy schedule to start the season, in any sport, can leave a team in a bad spot when they start to play real competition.

Rolling through bad teams can give a false sense of invulnerability, and it’s not something Hopkins has ever desired for his teams.

So far the Bears have played three teams who were in last year’s final four in their respective classifications, including Oconee County.

“I don’t like losing, but you learn as much in a loss as you ever will in a win,” Hopkins said. “That’s why we play good teams. Oconee’s the third or fourth team we’ve played that was a Final Four team last year. They’ve already played some other teams really tough, and we tested ourselves.”

“I thought we played Game 1 really well, and I watched how we reacted and I told our guys, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about Game 2 because you guys feel like it’s just gonna cruise.’ I think it’s really good to get a wakeup call sometimes.”

Oconee County’s tempo throws off batters

If you looked at the box score you’d see 12 hits for the Bears and assume the offense had a good outing.

But the Warriors’ Carson Fuchs played with extreme tempo, barely giving batters time before pitches.

So, yes, HoCo did finish with an astonishing amount of hits and even had the bases loaded in the fifth inning with a chance to take the lead. However, they were unable to find a rhythm when they needed to and it kept them to one run on the game.

“It’s not only [the batters] but it’s base runners tempo,” Hopkins said. “It just throws you off, you can’t get into any kind of rhythm. This is another game we ended up with 13-plus hits and we’re still trying to do too much when it’s just we gotta get a guy in from third or second. I think that guy did a good job of mixing pitches and getting us off balance when those opportunities arose.

“It doesn’t get much more road than Hoover”

The Bears are heading on the road for the first time this season for the PG High School Showdown, and won’t return to The Garden until March 4.

Teams like Blessed Trinity and Parkview will be attending from Georgia, but teams from Florida, Alabama and other states will also be participating.

This is a great opportunity for HoCo to test themselves on the road, where they’ve played some of their toughest playoff games like last year’s semifinals at Pope.

“It doesn’t get much more road than Hoover,” Hopkins said. “We’ll hit the road next week and we’ll travel for the first time, and it’s been nice being at home and being able to play here, but when we go to Hoover it’ll give us a really good test before we come back and start with Northside and then really build into our region schedule.”

UP NEXT

The Bears will gear up for a trip to Hoover, Alabama for the PG High School Showdown starting on Thursday, Feb. 27.