By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

The figurative chess board will get quite a workout.

GHSA
Class 6A
Championship
Lassiter vs. Houston County
5 p.m., Wednesday, Truist Park (third game, noon Thursday)

Lassiter Trojans
Record: 32-6, third in Region 6, 13-3
Head coach: Kyle Rustay, sixth year, 113-72
Final Four history: runner-up in 1995, 97, 2000, 05, 06, 10; champion in 1999, 2006, in either 4A or 5A.
Playoffs: Beat Cambridge 15-4, 7-1; Carrollton 0-10, 10-0, 6-3; Valdosta 5-2, 8-1; Pope 3-2, 3-0.
Losses: Parkview, 4-2; East Coweta, 7-2; Pope, 6-4; Allatoona, 9-1; Pope, 3-1; Carrollton, 10-0
Scoring: 7.5 scored per game, 3.1 allowed

Houston County Bears
Record: 31-7, first in Region 1, 8-1
Head coach: Matt Hopkins, third year, 61-25
Final Four history: champions in 2014 and 2016 in 5A
Playoffs: Beat Tucker 13-2, 15-0; Tucker 10-2, 10-0; East Paulding 12-0, 7-1; Allatoona 0-6, 6-1, 5-0
Losses: Locust Grove, 10-1; Hartselle, Ala., 3-2, 8 inn., Parkview, 12-8, 9-4; Locust Grove, 9-7; Starr’s Mill, 7-3; Valdosta 6-0; Allatoona 6-0
Scoring: 8.9 scored per game, 2.8 allowed

Lassiter is in the same region with Houston County’s semifinal victim. Houston County is in the same region as Lassiter’s quarterfinal victim.

Lassiter is the third-place team in Region 6, and had to beat region runner-up Pope in the semifinals, doing so with a pair of pitching-and-smallball wins, 3-2 and 3-0.

Houston County won Region 1, again, and dispensed of Region 6 champ Allatoona on the road in the semifinals, rebounding from a 6-0 series-opening loss to win 6-1 and 5-0.

The Bears are a little more familiar with being in this position, in the GHSA Class 6A state championship series starting Wednesday at Truist Park, with a pair of 5A state titles since 2014.

Lassiter may be on the big stage for the first time in awhile, but playing in such a tough region should have the Trojans more than prepared.

Pope and Allatoona played for the 2018 state title, after Pope beat Houston County 8-2, 2-4, and 5-1 in the quarterfinals.

A year earlier, Pope ended Houston County’s season in the second round, 11-2 and 10-0. While the Bears were beating Loganville for the 5A title in 2016, Pope was in the 6A final, losing to Walton, beating Lee County a year later for the championship.

“Back when we started the season in January, I think we had high hopes for this group,” said Lassiter head coach Kyle Rustay, who, like his Houston County counterpart, was an assistant for several years before taking over. “We had 14 seniors coming back, many of whom were starters in 2020. We believed we could compete for a region title and thought we had the potential to make a deep playoff run.

“Based on our schedule, we knew there would be challenges in the pre-region portion that would help get the team ready for the grind of the region schedule. Certainly, playing the likes of Allatoona and Pope prepares you for what you might see in the playoffs.”

Both teams had one two-game losing streak, Lassiter to Allatoona 9-1 and Pope 3-1, two days apart as March turned to April, and Houston County in early March, 12-8 and 9-4 to Parkview, which swept North Paulding 4-0 and 3-2 on Monday for the 7A title.

“We play a very tough early-season schedule, which we feel makes us more resilient,” Houston County head coach Matt Hopkins said. “We force failure to teach how to respond and see what level we need to grow to.”

Houston County’s wakeup call came in late March, when it followed a 15-11 win over Valdosta with a 6-0 loss.

“The turning point in the season was a 6-0 region shutout at Valdosta at the end of March,” Hopkins said. “After that game, the boys really rallied and turned it on.”

No kidding. Houston County went on a 16-game winning streak, starting with a 15-0 romp over West Laurens. The Bears won a few low-scoring close games, but others hammered folks during that streak, breaking double figures 11 times, including in eight straight games, five in the playoffs.

The nerves from playing in a major-league park may show up early, but Lassiter’s newness to the finals is likely to have worn off,

The Trojans – located northeast of Marietta and about 16 miles from Truist Park - have played every postseason series on the road, including the three-game series win over Carrollton, which opened the season No. 3 in the Georgia Dugout Preview poll (Houston County was No. 2, Lassiter wasn’t mentioned). Allatoona was No. 4 and Pope 5, and region fourth-place Kennesaw Mountain No. 8.

And then there was the semifinal win over Pope.

“The semifinals brought an unbelievable high school environment,” Rustay said. “Not hard to imagine when the schools are separated by all of three miles.”

The teams played only twice in the regular season, Pope winning 6-4 and 3-1 in games about two weeks apart.

Pitcher Ben Norton was the mound ace in the first semifinal win, the Trojans scoring twice in the top of the seventh for the lead – Kyle Carlson had the hit for the lead – which was saved in the bottom half on a 7-6-2 (Cameron Campbell, Bradley Frye, Ryan Stephens) play to end the game. Campbell is batting .375, Frye .414, and Stephens .365, Stephens and Campbell tied for team lead with three homers each.

Walker Noland threw a complete-game two-hit shutout to push Lassiter into the championship series.

That pitching faces an offense that’s pretty hot from top to bottom.

Eight of the Bears’ 10 regulars are batting at least .356. It’s not a powerful lineup – Coleman Willis leads Houston County with nine homers, Gage Harrelson next with five – but one that makes contact.

Harrelson and Treyson Hughes are 1-2 in the lineup, and they’ve teamed for 30 doubles, Harrelson addng five triples.

Willis and Brodie Chestnutt are a burly 1-2 punch on the mound. Willis, a 6-7 senior who’s hitting .427, is 9-2 with a 1.4 ERA and save, while Chestnutt is a 6-5 senior with 116 strikeouts in 76.2 innings, owning a 1.55 ERA and a 12-1 record.

Sophomore Andrew Dunford came up huge in the semifinal finale, with a 96-pitch complete-game four-hit shutout. He’s 5-0 with a 1.33 ERA.

Frye is headed to Georgia Tech, while the Bears are sending Willis to Georgia, Chestnutt to Florida State, Hughes to West Virginia, and Harrelson to Texas Tech.