Colton Green has won some big games in his 11 years as the head coach of the Hixson Wildcats, but none were any bigger than Thursday’s 10-0 victory over the Meigs County Tigers at Hixson’s John Plumlee Stadium.
Green kept the cat in the bag for the entire game and didn’t even let his players know until his post-game talk, but this latest win is his 200th as the Hixson coach where his record now stands at 200-137 with five district championships mixed in for good measure.
He got a nice Gatorade shower for his reward.
The Wildcats have had more than their share of challenges with injured players this spring, but everything seems to be coming together at just the right time as Thursday’s win was Hixson’s fifth straight as their record improves to 14-11 for the season.
“That was a good one,” Green said matter of factly following this latest win.
“I thought we played all three phases really well as we got outstanding pitching, solid defense and timely hitting. We’re playing well when it counts the most,” he continued.
Chase Bernard was the starting pitcher for Hixson and got the win after allowing no runs on four hits and a walk. Sophomore Charlie Rucker then pitched the next two innings while twin brother Dallas got the last three outs.
“Chase got us off to a good start with the home run in the first and I was so happy to see Charlie pitch so well. He’s been injured the entire season, so this was his first time to play and I was happy to see him do well.
“But this has been an incredible run for me these past 11 years. I’ve coached 10 of those years with the one year for Covid, but I’m just thankful to Brian Bray who gave me this chance back then. I’ve been blessed with some incredible athletes and a whole lot of dedicated parents to make it to this point. I have no plans to go anywhere as I continue to have a lot of fun coaching baseball,” Green smiled.
Meigs County is now 10-10 following this latest game and coach Walker Malone felt like the game was much closer than the final score might indicate.
“We had runners in scoring position in five of the six innings, but just couldn’t get the big hit when we needed one,” he began.
“I thought we played well for the most part as we hit some balls really hard. Hixson only had two more hits than we did, but two of them were home runs. We’ve had a great week and finish with three wins in four games, but we just have to move forward as we have a big series with Kingston on Monday and Tuesday.
“We had a lot of opportunities today, but we just weren’t able to score,” he added.
Cooper Bailey walked with one out in the first and scored ahead of Barnard’s two-run homer to left-center.
A leadoff single by Bailey in the third, followed by a walk to Barnard and a single by Blayne Harbin loaded the bases for Riley Frazier, who promptly lined a 2-0 pitch to right-center for a single to drive in Bailey. Barnard scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Landon Torigian to make it 4-0 while a groundout by Noah Garland allowed Harbin to score the fifth.
Frazier then ripped a solo homer to left-center to make it 6-0 after five before the Wildcats finished the deal with four runs in the sixth, the game-ending run scoring on Frazier’s third hit of the day.
Frazier was the offensive hero for Hixson with three hits and three runs driven in while Bailey and Barnard both scored three times. Harbin was the only other player with two hits.
Jacob Sims had three of the six hits for the Tigers.
MEIGS COUNTY 000 000 – 0 6 1
HIXSON 203 014 – 10 8 0
Hogan, Levy (6), Goins (6) and Levy, Hull (6); Barnard, C. Rucker (4), D. Rucker (6) and Lott.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)