ON THE OTHER SIDE: Houston County baseball swept by Newnan for first state championship loss

LAWRENCEVILLE — There are a lot of emotions involved in a championship game.

You hear most about the joy of winning one, or pride in a job well done.

The ones buried under the winners’ celebration are sorrow and grief. Seniors who’ve played their last game of baseball. Your season coming down to those final moments but you couldn’t cross the finish line.

Houston County coach Matt Hopkins isn’t used to experiencing the negative emotions of a championship game; All four times the Bears had been they’ve won. Hopkins and his team are facing uncharted territory together after crushing 3-1 and 11-1 losses at Coolray Field on Monday.

“I don’t know. We were 4-for-4 in championships, so I guess I get to figure out what this feels like,” Hopkins said of experiencing the other side of a championship game. “I know as players they go through very different things throughout the year, but I always feel like my job is to stay even no matter if they’re getting down or they’re upset or whatever their burdens are to try to wear them with them but not get emotionally attached to it or link myself to it.”

“As soon as we get done with the season I think it all just comes crashing down,” he continued. “You put five months of your life really into it once we start. And I think it’s one of those where every day I’m trying to be my best because I want that from them…Hopefully they can feel that I’ve poured my heart into them every day for the last four years.”

Hopkins said during the baseball banquet after the 2023 championship he cried so much he could barely speak. Though he admitted he was embarrassed, it showed the emotions he experiences throughout the season are not lost.

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There have been games and series this season that HoCo had preemptively decided they were the better team and would win the game.

Despite Hopkins’ displeasure in that, the Bears always seemed to find a way to win. They floated through a series against Loganville, who’d three-peated twice since 2017.

They sleepwalked through the first couple of rounds in the playoffs, waking up enough to put away Game 2 after Game 1 was closer than it should have been. But they played their best baseball of the year at Pope in an emotional win, that was the HoCo team that could have beaten anyone for the 2025 title.

A lot of people assumed they would come in, sweep Newnan, and claim another trophy for their ever-growing cabinet.

But the Cougars shocked the Bears into reality with a dominant performance, including a five-inning mercy rule in Game 2.

Newnan ran Max Willhide off in 2.2 innings, one of if not his shortest start of the season. They took care of clutch reliever Tyson Ganas in one inning where he gave up seven earned runs and three walks.

Tucker Hale lasted five pitches, which amounted to a hit-by-pitch and a walk to score two runs. Westen Ard pitched 1.1 innings of scoreless ball but by then it was far too late.

The Cougars had HoCo firmly on the ropes, eyes swollen and lips bleeding. But they delivered blow after blow until a runner interference call gave Newnan the knockout punch.

“Newnan was extremely hungry. They haven’t won a state championship since 1991,” Hopkins said. “I think we kind of assumed that we were just gonna finish this out. We’d already beat Pope, we’d already beat Loganville, and we’d eliminated the two teams people told us we had to. But I guess people forgot to tell us that Newnan was really talented as well.”

The series as a whole was an uncharacteristic effort from the Bears, and it started in Game 1’s at-bats.

Say what you will about the strike zone, which Hopkins was careful commenting about post-game, but HoCo took a lot of strikes looking.

Newnan’s Hayes McGinnis struck out the first five batters he saw, and the Bears didn’t even get on base until a third inning single from Tyson Ganas. He ended up on third and Kendall Jackson walked to put runners on the corners, but Vick Gann’s popup to shortstop stranded them.

Isaiah Galason’s solo jack to left field, which landed in the bullpen, was the only semblance of offense HoCo could generate.

Atypical errors made the Bears appear jumpy, and helped the Cougars into runs in the third and fourth innings.

Game 2 continued a spiral, despite the general belief that HoCo would bounce back and force a Game 3. They gave up seven runs and went through three pitchers in the fourth inning, ultimately dooming them to a five-inning mercy rule.

Hopkins emphasized that this championship loss doesn’t diminish anything this class has accomplished — A state title, a state championship, semifinals and quarterfinals appearance to go with three region championships.

“I know it’s cliche, but I genuinely love every one of these kids up here,” Hopkins said in reference to the seniors with him in the press conference. “It’s really easy to start barking, ‘I can’t believe you made that call, or you didn’t make that call’…Just reminding them that we play with integrity and we’re not gonna blame other people for things that we failed at. Because one day they’re gonna be husbands, they’re gonna be fathers, they’re gonna have a job, and they’re gonna fail at something.”

“But they’ve gotta understand, men know how to lose. It’s harder to lose than it is win, winning’s easy,” he continued. “But losing reveals character. But I think that every one of these guys, their character has continued to grow as they’ve been in our program…At the end of the day I think they’re gonna be great men and great fathers. And I can’t wait to see them come back at the field next year and the year after and give ‘em a really big bear hug and see a smile on their face knowing that maybe I’d had a small part in their life.”

The Bears end their season with a 33-7 overall record, a region championship and a state championship appearance.