Pitching, focus put Houston County baseball in title series

Two years ago, the bats were lively, the pitching good enough and the chemistry on point. And Houston County won the GHSA Class AAAAA baseball title, topping Whitewater in three games on the road.

The Bears built on that by, well, failing to get out of the Region 2-AAAAA tournament a year later.

“Last year, we definitely had the team to do the same thing we’re doing this year,” junior pitcher/center fielder D.L. Hall said. “We had a little lack of leadership last year.”

So there was naturally a question of whether that 2014 title was a fluke. Win state one year, can’t make the tournament the next?

The 2016 edition of the Bears has only three players with real, sweating-at-crunch-time experience from the 2014 squad: infielder Jake Fromm, pitcher-first baseman Tanner Hall and outfielder Blake Dawson.

But a basic lack of playoff experience and pressure situations hasn’t been much of a problem, because here is Houston County back in the state title series.

The Bears host Loganville, a team with a nice postseason pedigree, for the three-game championship series starting at 4 p.m. on Monday with a doubleheader, a third if-needed championship game set for 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

If the best-of-three doesn’t go three games, it’ll be pretty shocking.

Loganville is 28-7 and Houston County 28-8.

Houston County is averaging 4.5 runs a game in the playoffs, Loganville 4.4. The Bears have given up 2.5 runs a game, the Red Devils 2.3.

Both have players set for power-five conference futures, both have had young players come through, and both have tradition.

“They’re similar to us,” Houston County head coach Brett said. “They’ve got some arms that are pretty good, they swing the bat pretty well. They play good defense, and they can pitch and catch a little bit.”

This year’s Houston County team has the confidence of a program that was just in a title series two years ago, having gotten past the issues that kept the Bears home a year ago.

“We definitely got it back this year, with our juniors and seniors,” Hall said of the leadership issue. “That’s huge, to have it more than just your seniors.”

On the field, this one is different than the 2014 group, which has a swagger at the plate.

“Two years ago, we swung the bats,” Brett said. “It was very, very, very, good. There’s not another way to say it. We swung the bats really well. We relied more on offense than anything else.”

This one has a swagger on the mound.

“I knew we’d have a good pitching staff,” shortstop Tucker Garland said. “We knew if our hitting came along, we’d be all right. We have some of the best pitchers in the state. Most people’s No. 3 isn’t like what we have. It’s crazy.”

That would be lefty Tanner Hall, who is 8-1 with five saves and is coming off a masterpiece in Tuesday’s 2-0 series-ending win over Gainesville.

And the Bears have reached this point with old-school baseball, small ball: They pitch, they play defense, and then there’s some hitting.

Houston County has won games in just about every way possible, especially in the playoffs. The Bears’ two-game sweep of Columbus had enough wild baseball to last a month, and if ever there was a time for a Houston County player, coach, fan, concession worker or neighbor of the school to buy a lottery ticket, that was the night.

“It was the most stressful baseball game I’ve ever played in in my life,” Garland said of the epic 8-7 eight-inning win to clinch the series. “My blood pressure was up.”

The Bears aren’t really much of a prototype championship team.

The first pitcher in the rotation is a transfer from Hardaway in Columbus, bringing with him a big-time reputation and following of pro scouts and top 20 college programs.

He is headed to Georgia, and Tony Locey’s phone has more numbers of major league teams than your average high school player.

And he’s not the best pitcher on this particular high school team. That title goes to Tanner Hall, who may not step atop the mound if the Bears happen to sweep or get swept.

Hall is a lefty who plays first when he’s not starting on the mound or finishing on the mound. Headed for Division II Armstrong Atlantic, he has a 0.64 ERA and and .136 opponents’ batting average.

Locey is 8-4 with a 2.14 ERA, and battles consistency. His 75-1/3 innings lead the team by far, and he has 109 strikeouts to only 29 walks, countered by an astounding 20 hit batters, four times more than any teammate. In the middle, figuratively and literally, is D.L. Hall, who otherwise starts in center. He is 6-1 with a 1.84 ERA, three saves and a nifty 79 strikeouts in 53 1/3 innings, but also 39 walks.

But opponents are only hitting .135 against him.

His lone loss? By a 2-0 margin at Gainesville in the second game of the semifinal series. He gave up only four hits, with eight strikeouts and one walk.

An underrated part of the pitching success comes at the other end of those throws, at catcher, the position of concern back in the preseason.

Behind the plate for this marvelous staff is junior Lawson Trawick and sophomore Dillon Toms. But they’ve been so smooth, Dawson forgot that they were inexperienced underclassmen.

“That’s right,” Dawson said, shaking his head. “I wasn’t even thinking about them. They’ve been that good.”

Trawick has a .977 fielding percentage on 304 total chances, and Toms has been a quality sub, with no errors on 20 chances.

As good as the staff is, the Bears can get wild. Trawick has 19 passed balls and Toms one. Houston County pitchers have 20 wild pitches and 45 hit batters.

“Coming into this year, that’s kind of what we thought we were missing, at catcher,” D.L. Hall said. “(Trawick)’s done better than just about anybody could have done. And Toms, only a sophomore, coming in the last three series, (is) doing just as good as our starting catcher.”

Houston County has little power. Its sixth home run came Tuesday, off the bat of Dillon Strickland, who entered the game with five singles. Loganville catcher Morgan Copeland has as many homers as the Bears.

So this is a fairly basic baseball team that’s playing for its second trophy in three years, and in a region that boasts last year’s state champion, Greenbrier.

Loganville? Not much different.

The Red Devils are more offensive, having cracked the double-digit run mark nine times, two more than the Bears, who did it three times against Warner Robins.

Loganville has shut out five opponents, Salem twice. The Bears have blanked nine opponents, Warner Robins and Northside comprising four.

The Red Devils have only five errors this month, to nine for the Bears.

They have players headed to big programs and small programs, and youngsters, like freshman Blaine Marchman and sophomore Gabe Knight, playing impact roles.

Head coach Jeff Segars in his 20^th year at Loganville, 17 as head coach. The Red Devils have state titles in 2008 and 2012, and they were runners-up in 2002.

Loganville is expected to bring a huge following from Walton County, about 35 miles east of Atlanta. But both are off semifinal series wins on the road and likely ready for the astounding atmosphere that awaits and that both expected to be part of.

“Everywhere we’ve gone this year in the playoffs has been a tough environment,” Segars said. “You come to Loganville, it’s a tough environment. I talked to the kids about it the other day. They better be ready, because Houston County’s fans are gonna be ready to go. We’ll worry about what we can worry about and being mentally ready to go.”

This story was originally published May 21, 2016 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Pitching, focus put Houston County baseball in title series."