Harris County’s bats, pitching come alive in win over Hardaway

Harris County had a rough start against Hardaway on Thursday, giving up four runs and trailing after the first three innings. And then the lightning flashed, the clouds opened up and the game was called due to weather.

Sometimes, a break is all it takes.

The two teams restarted the game from the beginning on Friday, and the Tigers took advantage of the opportunity, scoring a 10-1 victory that bumped them ahead of the Hawks in Region 1-5A play. The Tigers are 8-4-1 overall and 4-2 in the region. The Hawks are 8-4 and 4-3.

“That’s the great thing about this game,” Harris County coach Steve Westmoreland said after his team’s win. “You can have a bad game and come back. We didn’t pitch very well yesterday. We pitched great today. We weren’t very good at the plate yesterday. We swung it pretty well today.”

The Tigers got a complete-game three-hitter from Brett Griffin. Griffin struck out eight batters and didn’t allow a run after the first inning. The only run he allowed in the contest was unearned, when Jalin Thomas reached on an error to start the game and eventually came around to score on a groundout by Jonathan Manibusan.

In the second through the seventh innings, Griffin set down 18 of Hardaway’s final 21 batters.

“After the first inning, he really settled in,” Westmoreland said. “He was throwing his breaking ball for strikes early in the count. That’s kind of what we’ve been trying to do. We don’t have that power arm that we’ve had in the past. Our guys are going to have to change speeds, and that’s what he does.”

Griffin was helped by the bats, which, in turn, were helped by some defensive miscues by the Hawks. Three of Harris County’s runs were unearned, but, Westmoreland said, his batters took advantage when given the extra opportunities.

The Tigers scored two each in the first and third innings, then five in the fourth and one in the fifth to fall just short of ending the game early via the mercy rule. Ross Mckibben had a pair of home runs and three RBIs, Mathew Becker knocked an RBI double in the first, Jacob Rovig went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs, Carson Powell was 1-for-3 with an RBI, and Griffin helped himself with a pair of RBIs, as well.

“I think one of the things we can do is it,” Westmoreland said. “We can be a little Jekyll and Hyde with it. They didn’t have a very clean day in the field, and to our guys’ credit, when they made mistakes we made them pay for it.”

Now, Harris County is in a familiar situation to the one it was in last year, when it beat Hardaway in the first of two games one week during region play. Westmoreland said he cautioned his team against falling into the same trap it did a year ago.

“We can go back to what we did last year,” he said. “We beat Hardaway on Thursday, we come back and we lose on Friday. We pick up a win against Columbus, and then we come back the next day and lose to Shaw. Our guys understand that the next game is the big game.”

Harris County will play at Hardaway at noon Saturday.

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Harris County’s bats, pitching come alive in win over Hardaway."