Northside completes foundational season, looks to keep building program in coming years

WARNER ROBINS — With Wednesday’s 11-4 win over Hawkinsville, Northside finished a baseball season with a .500 record for the first time since 2012.

This milestone caps a season that saw the Eagles accomplish several more. They won their first region game since 2019 (the last year they finished with double digit wins, too) and won multiple for the first time in 10 years.

Four seasons ago Joey Walker’s team played 30 games and won three. The next year they played 25 and again won three. Last year they finished 6-22 and their sixth year without a region victory.

Many of the losses were not close, either. The team folded under pressure and was often out of games in the first few innings. They were disregarded by the Houston County baseball community.

But 2026 will go down as the year they started to turn heads.

“To go from three [wins], to six, to nine to now 15, just to hang with it through the early [seasons]…it was hard,” Walker said. “As an adult with mature emotions it was hard, so I can’t even imagine the immature [emotions of a teenager]. We’ve got some seniors that didn’t make it all four years because it was too hard.”

Walker’s expectations for his players have steadily increased. Emerson Rugama, Taylor Hall, Caden Nelson and Daniel Valdes are some of the best the program has produced so far. The 2026 class is the first group of seniors that he’s had from the beginning.

“We demanded more and more every year to try to close the gap. I pray that they see…hard work is rewarded,” he continued. “For them to see that and for them to be able to claim that they laid the foundation for moving forward, that hopefully it’s a cultural shift. Hopefully people will look back on this year [and say]…they changed the Northside program and the trajectory of it. Because it could have easily headed the other way.”

Progress is not often linear and Northside graduates eight seniors this year; that is not a small number.

That doesn’t mean the program can’t continue to move in a positive direction. With an uptick in young players comes more opportunity to grow and those coming in will have the benefit of a foundation already set.

They are still a long way from regularly competing in a tough Region 2-5A (2-6A next year) that will add Tift County for at least the next cycle.

“A lot of it is going to focus on the weight room and nutrition. At this point we got to start looking physically like some of the other teams in the region,” Walker said on some next steps. “We are pretty small still, and we’re going to be very, very young next year. We have one senior Jaxson Rowe coming back next year.”

“We got a lot of freshmen coming in from eighth grade that are pretty solid at Thomson [Middle School] and Northside Middle, and so it’s going to be getting them bought into the weight room and getting them bought into the culture,” Walker continued.

There are several players to be excited about already on the roster, too.

Freshman Jeremy Snelling is towards the top of the list. He’s developing into a lethal leadoff hitter and had a great end to the season.

“Got a real special freshman, Jeremy Snelling. He has probably said six words all year long and he’s going to have to own some stuff and step up into a leadership role, and we’re going to press him into that,” Walker said. “Jacob Canceran [is] another freshman…then Tucker Stillwell…he’s a 10th-grader. [We’re going to] lean on those three as [the] tone setters and see if we can’t build on this.”

Even this season you could see the effects of relying on younger or inexperienced players. While the four primary seniors (Rugama, Hall, Nelson and Valdes) produced consistently, one of the Eagles’ weaknesses was finding similar output elsewhere.

Walker won’t be surprised if the numbers look worse next year. However, the Northside alum is not too concerned with on-paper numbers.

“Even if the record doesn’t look quite the same, if the program can continue to improve and what the product looks like [that will be progress],” Walker continued. “The region gets tougher bringing Tift [County] back into the region. [Post Season Ranking] becomes a thing, so we’re actually going to probably try to schedule a little harder to help our PSR to try and sneak into the back end of the playoffs.”

Specifically with Rugama and Hall graduating, developing pitchers will be a big focus for the Eagles in the next few years.

Consistent pitching separates the teams at the bottom of the standings to those at the top. Houston County, a well-established program with a wealth of talented pitchers year after year, is proof of that.

Walker acknowledged the fact that his budding program is not pulling from the same pool the Bears are and that they can’t rely on gifts alone.

“It’ll start with throwing programs in the summer, trying to get them up to speed,” Walker said on the first steps to in-house development. “We don’t have guys that are going to be throwing 90 and can live on strikeouts, and we know that, so they’ve got to be able to hit spots.”

“We’ll start doing competition bullpens, where if you don’t hit a certain number you’ve got to run or you’ve got to do burpees or whatever,” he explained. “Just to challenge them to make it difficult, because just throwing into the nine square over and over is like hitting off a tee…When you step up to the mound and you’ve got a guy across you who’s hitting .500 in the region and tearing the cover off the ball you still got to get it to the catcher. So it’s really just trying to get them to grow up and get a competitive mentality.”

Outside eyes might look on this season and shrug their shoulders. No playoff appearance, 2-13 in the region. But for those in tune with the Northside baseball program, they know that big things are on the horizon.