In a matchup of 5A South heavyweights, the 5A South State series shouldn’t disappoint when the Hattiesburg Tigers and the West Jones Mustangs take the field Thursday.
The Mustangs have become a force in Trey Sutton’s second season at the helm, and the impressive Tigers’ senior class is making their third trip to south state and they’re looking to finally capture the elusive state title they’ve coveted since joining the varsity team. West Jones will have the home field advantage, due to its lower region number, hosting Game 1 Thursday and, if necessary, Game 3 Saturday. Hattiesburg will play a home game Friday for Game 2, and all game times are set for 7 p.m.
“West Jones is a really good baseball team,” Hattiesburg coach Joe Hartfield said. “They’re really good defensively, they’re really good pitching-wise, so that’s their strength. … It’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be tough. I look for it to be a lot like the South Jones series.”
West Jones coach Trey Sutton, a former West Jones and Southern Miss standout, didn’t have to change a lot when he inherited an already solid program. While he expected success for the Mustangs in three or four years, a two-year transformation in a three-loss team isn’t a surprise.
“I felt like it was just a matter of getting in here and establishing the culture,” Sutton said. “The program, we’ve always won. I think it was just a matter of me getting in here with my coaches and establishing what we wanted. I was kind of anticipating three, four years before I really felt like the kids understood what West Jones baseball was about, but it seemed to catch on a little quicker.
“It helps that we have some good players, too, but it helps even more when you have those good players buy in to what you’re trying to do.”
West Jones and Hattiesburg played early this season, as the Tigers earned a 4-0 win on a Saturday at George County. Normally, teams aren’t fully loaded for Saturday games like they are in the postseason, and the Mustangs threw a pitcher who’s fifth on the team in innings pitched. The Tigers scored four runs in the sixth inning to pull away, and senior Joe Gray, the team’s Game 3 start against South Jones, pitched 4.2 innings of one-hit ball then senior Dexter Jordan, Hattiesburg’s ace, pitched the remaining 2.1 innings with five strikeouts.
“They threw, I think, their No 4 at us, although that kid was really good, they have some guys who are considered a little better than I’m sure we’ll see in the first game, second game and third game,” Hartfield said.
Sutton had a message for his team after that game, too.
“It was a good ballgame,” Sutton said. “Coming away from the game, it was a weekend game where we were kind of thin on pitching by the time we played them that week, and we were still in a 0-0 game late and they kind of pulled away in the end. If I remember right, after the game talking to the kids, we talked about how (Hattiesburg) is one of those teams that’s supposed to win 5A this year and we played with them.”
All signs are pointing to a monster matchup on the mound in Game 1, as Jordan will most likely assume his Game 1 starting role while West Jones would most likely trot out junior Dustin Dickerson.
Dickerson has pitched 61 innings in 2018 with an 8-0 record and a 0.80 earned run average. He’s struck out 78 batters, has walked 19 and he’s only allowed 15 runs – seven earned – on 33 hits. Similar to Southern Miss’ Nick Sandlin, Dickerson was used more as a closer a season ago before being moved into the ace position of the pitching staff.
“I’ve never really thought about it that way, but it’s very similar to that,” Sutton said. “He kind of developed into something that we wanted to get more innings out of.”
Last week’s Game 2 starter, junior Kris Riley, has logged 37 innings this season with a 4.16 ERA and a 4-1 record, and seniors Evan Bynum and Hayden Bryan are third and fourth with 34 and 31.1 innings, respectively. Bynum is 6-0 with a 2.47 ERA and Bryan sports a 0.89 ERA with a 5-0 record.
Bynum started the decisive Game 3 against Pearl River Central last week, and Bryan finished the final inning to earn the win.
In that Game 3 of the third-round series with PRC, Riley launched a walk-off three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to give West Jones a dramatic 7-6 win to send it to this week’s south state series.
There’s no doubt West Jones has momentum entering Thursday’s contest but so does Hattiesburg after it back-ended a series win over South Jones last week.
“At this point of the season, any kind of momentum you’ve built is big,” Sutton said.
