Northside’s offense falls short, Eagles swept by Houston County

Eagles shortstop Emerson Rugama (center) leans down to scoop up a ground ball during Game 2 of Northside’s region series against Houston County. (Clay Brown/HHJ)

WARNER ROBINS — It’s not often you see mixed colors in a postgame huddle, especially in the one that didn’t win.

But after Northside (9-5, 0-3 Region 2-5A) head coach Joey Walker and Houston County (10-2, 3-0 Region) head coach Matt Hopkins exchanged words in the infield, Hopkins accompanied Walker to the huddle in left field.

“He just wanted to really tell them how gritty and scrappy they were,” Walker said on Hopkins’ message. “The progress we’ve made through the last couple of years…He just wanted to encourage them. That we were a team that was capable to compete in the region, and that it’s a tough place to come in to start off region play but that if they would hold it together and not lose their heads, we had an opportunity to be really competitive in the region.”

The most notable thing about what, on paper, was just another series sweep at the hands of the Bears, was the way the 12-1 and 5-1 finals played out.

These games (well, except one) weren’t over in five innings or three innings. Unlike previous years, the Eagles had a chance late in these games to win.

The defense was a big reason for that, even if the wheels did fall off in the fifth inning of Game 2.

Northside made most of the routine plays and HoCo really had a hard time producing offense unaided by misplays. The pitching was solid; Daniel Valdes only gave up three earned runs out of 12 in Game 2. Emerson Rugama had a decent outing, allowing four earned runs and striking out six batters.

Third base had the most consistent problems regardless of personnel in both games. Walker said the infield is more of a work in progress, as evidenced by a complete overhaul in Game 3.

“I would say our outfield is really, really good. I would say that our infield is progressing to where they need to be, we just got to clean up stuff on some hard-hit balls across the infield,” Walker said. “Third base bit us in the butt that second game [of the night]. That made what was a close game get out of hand really quick in that last inning.”

“We’ve kind of noticed in these first three [region] games that, that fifth inning is where we started to see maybe a crooked number get up on the scoreboard,” Walker continued. “We’ve talked to our starting pitchers about, that third time through the lineup is tough…But I would say defensively we are miles ahead of where we’ve been in the past few years.”

But as much as the errors didn’t help, not being able to back up the pitcher at the plate was their biggest problem.

The Eagles only scored two runs in the entire three-game series, and one of those was because of a HoCo misplay.

In the doubleheader Northside batted 5-of-43 (.116) and struck out 14 times.

“Early on in the season we feasted on fastballs. Especially at the top of the lineup,” Walker said. “We had guys coming in batting .600 and .400 and they really felt good about themselves, and they’re really good baseball players, but when you face a team of the caliber of Houston County, they’re going to find out real fast that you hist fast balls so you’re not going to see many.”

“So our leadoff guy, our two hole, three hole even our four hole some, they got flipped a lot of breaking balls, a lot of away stuff,” He continued. “We’ve been preaching since September to use the whole field, it’s just more about trusting that process and not being so reactive…it’s just having a better approach at the plate.”