THE DROUGHT IS OVER: Northside beats Lee County 4-3 for first region victory since 2019

WARNER ROBINS — Northside baseball has seen some truly dark times.

Just three years ago when Joey Walker took over the program the Eagles went 3-27 — the fewest wins in a season in the MaxPreps era.

He had to start from scratch, teach high school kids how to play baseball the right way. There was little payoff and a lot of turbulence, but this year something has finally started to click.

Those kids that won just three games out of 30 in 2023 secured the Eagles’ (10-5, 1-3 Region 2-5A) first region win in seven years on Tuesday with a 4-3 defeat of Lee County (8-5, 1-3 Region).

“Year one we were like, [3-27]. We won the first game and then after that it was just punch in the face [after punch in the face],” Walker said. “To see those same set of seniors, who were playing a lot as freshmen then, come out and just play their tails off. Do everything we ask them to do for four years, some of it they hated.”

“We’ve lost some guys along the way that couldn’t hold up to the standard that we were trying to establish here and to see those guys get rewarded for their hard work and to see a really great ball game get played out here. For us to come out on the winning side of that finally is, man, it’s a lot. It’s awesome. God is good,” He continued.

Senior Emerson Rugama was the highlight of the night.

Rugama pitched all seven innings and came up with some gritty strikeouts to help close the game and get his tally to nine.

Two-hole hitter Nathan Taczy was up with two outs in the top of the seventh to keep Lee County alive. After taking the first ball and strike he fouled off two pitches before Rugama finished him off with a fastball.

He threw 104 pitches but was also 2-for-3 at the plate, scoring two runs himself.

“Coming into the last inning we were over there talking, ‘Whoever’s got the most guts is about to win this game,’” Walker said. “I looked at coach [Tyler] Wilson, our pitching coach, and I said, ‘I’ll take [Emerson Rugama] over anybody right now.’”

“He’s a headache sometimes to coach, he’s a little crazy, he’s a little cooky, but [he’s] one of my favorite kids in the world, I’d take him home with me today,” Walker continued. “He talked to me in the third inning when he wasn’t elite yet on the mound…He pulled it back together.”

The Trojans opened the game with a RBI single and two-run home run to take a 3-0 lead. In previous years that alone has been enough for Northside to check out and let the opponent run away with the game.

Instead, in the bottom of the first, Taylor Hall drew a hit-by-pitch and two at-bats later Daniel Valdes doubled on a line drive to right field and scored Rugama and Hall to cut into the deficit.

As the top of the lineup came back around in the third inning, Hall’s ground out scored one run and Jeremiah Rozier’s took the lead for what would be the rest of the game.

The important thing for Northside was holding on to that lead especially when the offense dried up.

Walker and his staff tried to keep their messaging consistent in the last few innings to not spook the players.

“We still are a program learning how to win,” Walker said. “We saw last week, one bad inning, the wheels could fall off. So I think the consistency piece is what’s next…I think you could see from the excitement [tonight] that they weren’t so sure, but I’m hoping now they’ll see the kind of team they really are, the team [Houston County head coach Matt Hopkins] told them last week about.”

The one blight on an otherwise celebratory night was the bottom of the lineup, who finished 0-for-8 and accounted for all five of Northside’s strikeouts.

“We’ve got two freshmen who are taking some lumps right now. We’ve got Jacob Cancerin down there and Jeremy Snelling,” Walker said. “I just told them, ‘I love watching y’all play…you’re figuring it out, you ain’t got a clue what’s going on right now…’ So it’s just some growing pains there. I think if we can get them going, you know region pitching is a whole lot different than the middle school pitching they saw last year…then we can get it back over to the top of the lineup with the guys that really do consistently put the ball in play and do some damage.”

UP NEXT

Northside and Lee County will face off again in the doubleheader on March 13.