Houston County Ready for Rematch in Final Four
The Houston County Bears Baseball team is set to face the Pope Greyhounds in the GHSA AAAAAA Semifinal Round
WARNER ROBINS, Georgia – (41NBC/WMGT) – The Houston County Bears Baseball team is no stranger to success. Since winning their first ever State Championship back in 2014, the last ten seasons have seen the Bears break numerous records, win multiple state titles, and send several players to play at the NCAA Division One level. To commemorate their success since then, they had t-shirts made up that read, “Decade of Dominance”. Well. they have certainly lived up to that name this season, as they have made it back to the final four for a consecutive season, their third in four years.
Now to get to that State Championship game once again, the Bears find themselves facing a familiar opponent. The same team HoCo beat to win the state title last season, the Pope Greyhounds, a team that has been to nine consecutive semifinal rounds, according to Houston County Head Coach Matt Hopkins.
Coach Hopkins is proud of this team and knows they are exactly where they are supposed to be, but it wasn’t easy getting here. “Honestly, I can’t even put it into words” said Hopkins. “It’s been a tough year, just trying to really rally together and I think the boys have done a great job of just continuing our expectations of what the program is…these are our boys and they expect to do well and they’ve done exactly that…It’s so hard to get to this point, and to be able to do it three out of the last four years, is pretty special.”
To be apart of this team that has been playing together for years, is something special to this group of young men. Junior Shortstop Ethan Buffone feels great and is “really proud of this team.” Buffone also knows the Bears “have come a long way, battled a lot of adversity losing a lot of players, and battling tough teams. I think our team is built for state championship runs.”
Junior First Basemen Will Allen is also proud, but according to the Junior, this is “what I expect from this program, because we are just a hard working program and we give it all we’ve got on the field. I just love that we came together as a team, just built team chemistry, and just come together to play baseball” said Allen.
After beating Pope for the state title last season, Coach Hopkins said the team is “there too. We’ve earned the right to be respected on our own and there is nothing we have to prove to anybody, we just have to show up and play Houston County baseball.”
For as good as this Pope baseball team is, the Bears have an unmatched confidence heading into their final four matchup. “I think we should beat them to be honest” said Allen. “If we just keep hitting, pitching, have confidence on the field and keep the energy up in the dugout, I think that’s really important.”
“They are scared of us” said Buffone. “We are going to come out hot and show them who we are. Same team as last year, same championship team. It’s going to take a lot of focus and confidence and energy. I think if we just play our game, we are going to beat them.”
“I’m just extremely proud of these kids” said Coach Hopkins. “We’ve had to have a lot of guys step up, with senior injuries, and some injuries throughout the program, and different things. Just being a high a school teenager and people asking you, ‘hey are you going to repeat?’ or ‘hey, are y’all going to be able to continue to be good?’ and my boys have been telling me ‘yeah, so and so, and this other program said ‘we aren’t going to be that good this year’, and everything else. I’m like ‘you know the thing is guys, it doesn’t matter what other people say.’ I know it’s kind of cliche to say that stuff, but make sure we do what we are supposed to do, handle our business, and do things the Houston County way, and let our culture speak for itself and the results will be what we want them to be, and we are right in the position we wanted to be in at the beginning of the year.”
Houston County travels to Cobb County in North Marietta to face the Pope Greyhounds in the semifinal round on Saturday, May 11 with a first pitch scheduled for 2pm.
