The Houston County Bears baseball team opened region play at home earlier this evening and night as they took on county rival Northside in a doubleheader and the result was a Bears’ shutout win 8-0 followed by a 17-2 HoCo victory in four innings.
The host struggled to get going on offense in Game One as they started 0-6 going into the third inning as the score was gridlocked at 0-0 until the Black, Silver, and White got the offense going in the last of the third and that started when Isaiah Galason hit a hard groundball and reached on an E6 and Hudson Sherman scored to make the score 1-0 Bears.
Kendall Jackson would follow up by hitting an rbi single to drive in Isaiah Galason to make the score 2-0 and Kendall Jackson would score on a steal of home to make the score 3-0 HoCo going into the fourth inning. The host continued it’s offensive hitting in the bottom half of the fourth where Will Allen reached on an E6 and advanced to second while Ethan Buffone scored in the process to make the score 4-0.
Caleb Adkison and Hudson Sherman would both score on a wild pitch to bring the score to 6-0 in favor of the host and Kendall Jackson would hit another rbi single to drive in Isaiah Galason to make the score 7-0 HoCo going into the fifth. The Bears would plate one more run in the last of the sixth when Eli Stephens was HBP to carousel the bases to drive in Isaiah Galason to make the score 8-0 HoCo which would be the final score of Game One.
The Bears’ SP Will Allen pitched another gem as he went five innings surrendering no runs on two hits, walking none, and striking out 11 in the process while his reliever JT Withers pitched two relief innings and surrendered no runs on two hits, walking none, and striking out four in the process. Kendall Jackson led the Black, Silver, and White with two rbis followed by Eli Stephens with one.
46 of Allen’s 60 pitches went for strikes which means in his last two starts, 109 of Allen’s last 143 pitches have gone for strikes which is 76.22%. The Eagles’ SP Jesus Gil threw 101 pitches in five and 1/3rd innings of work and he surrendered seven runs (three earned) on three hits, walked three, and struck out four in the process.
Reliever Daniel Valdes pitched 2/3rds of an inning where he surrendered an earned run on one hit, walking one, and striking out none in the process. Northside committed four errors while HoCo committed no errors in Game One.
Game Two started out differently as the Blue, Orange, and White would strike first in the top half of the first when Justin Canceran hit a two rbi single to drive in Jesus Gil and Caden Nelson to make the score 2-0 Eagles but it would not last long as HoCo would get to work in the bottom half of the first when Vick Gann scored on a wild pitch to make the score 2-1 Eagles.
Troy Carpenter would hit a sac-fly to center that would drive in Kendall Jackson to tie the game at 2 a piece and the Black, Silver, and White would take the lead on a Noah Odom score via a wild pitch to make it 3-2 in favor of the host, a lead they would not relinquish the remainder of the contest. Christian Wahiwe would ground into fielder’s choice that would drive in Ethan Buffone to make the score 4-2 Bears going into inning two.
HoCo would put the game away in the last of the second and it started when Eli Stephens hit a two rbi single to drive in Vick Gann and Kendall Jackson to make the score 6-2 in favor of the host and Noah Odom would score another run on a wild pitch to make the score 7-2 and Christian Wahiwe would hit a hard ground ball and reach on an E4 that would in turn drive in Troy Carpenter and Ethan Buffone to make the score 9-2 Bears.
Isaiah Galason would hit an rbi single to drive in Hudson Sherman to make the score 10-2 HoCo and Vick Gann would hit a two rbi double to drive in Christian Wahiwe and Isaiah Galason to make the score 12-2 in favor of the Black, Silver, and White. Vick Gann would score on a wild pitch to make it 13-2 in favor of the host and that would be the score heading into the third inning.
In the last of the third, Isaiah Galason would hit an rbi double to drive in Hudson Sherman to make the score 14-2 HoCo and in the last of the fourth, Kendall Jackson scored on an E2 to push the score to 15-2 which would be followed by a Logan Elble ground ball where he reached on an error which scored Camden Cunningham to make the score 16-2 Bears.
Hudson Sherman would end the game on an rbi single that would drive in Logan Elble to make the score 17-2 and end the game in four innings. Christian Wahiwe would lead the Bears in rbis with three followed by Vick Gann, Eli Stephens, and Isaiah Galason with two each and Troy Carpenter and Hudson Sherman with one each while Justin Canceran had both of Northside’s rbis.
HoCo SP Landon Tankersley pitched all four innings where he surrendered two unearned runs on three hits, walking one, and striking out eight in the process while the Eagles’ pitchers combined to allow 17 runs (11 earned) on seven hits, walking 10, and striking out one in the process. Northside committed seven errors while the Bears committed two errors in the contest.
The Black, Silver, and White improve to 9-3 overall; 0-2 in region play while the Blue, White, and Orange fall to 4-7 overall; 0-2 in region play and these two will face each other at the Eagle’s Nest on Friday at 6pm.
