Northwestern baseball’s region winning streak faces toughest year yet

Northwestern baseball coach Mitch Walters is not a numbers guy.

He wouldn’t be able to tell you that his Trojans have won 38 straight games in Region 3-4A, or that they’ve gone undefeated in the league the last three years. He would say, as he did Monday afternoon while his team was warming up for practice, that his and his players’ focus is always solely on the next game. Not on streaks in the past, or what might happen beyond the next seven innings.

“I’ve been going since ‘90, so I don’t know how many it is,” said Walters, whose team went 14-0 in region the past two years and 10-0 in a six-team region in 2012. “It’s not important. It’s just the next one, and really no one cares deep down.”

Northwestern faces the first challenge to its unbeaten region run Tuesday when the Trojans host Fort Mill in both team’s league opener. Brad Mercer’s team has given Northwestern plenty of good games in recent seasons, even beating the Trojans during the 2013 Wheels Tournament. But the Yellow Jackets haven’t topped Walters’ team in region play the last two years and Mercer wholly respects what his counterpart has done at Northwestern.

“Coach Walters has a system in place, the kids buy in to the program and it doesn’t seem like they ever graduate a bunch of kids,” said Mercer. “They have somebody else that’s been that person’s backup to step in. They play with a lot of confidence because of that streak.”

Of the 38 wins in a row, the Trojans have won 17 of those by three or less runs. Fort Mill and Northwestern played a typically close one Saturday during a tournament in Myrtle Beach, a 5-4 Northwestern win, but neither side’s ace pitched. Mercer confirmed College of Charleston signee Clay Helvey will start on the mound for his team Tuesday, while Walters said his Furman signee, senior Eric Taylor, will get the ball for the Trojans.

Both teams will need their pitchers to be on point.

Fort Mill only got on the field six times in the first 18 days of scheduled practice, and only three of those saw Yellow Jackets hit from the actual batter’s box. Northwestern suffered similarly; Walters said his team spent most of February in its covered batting facility or on the school’s tennis courts. A lack of preseason repetition will likely have a negative impact, especially on those teams like Fort Mill that are replacing entire middles of their defenses and batting orders. Fortunately for the Yellow Jackets, they’ve got Helvey and two other senior starting pitchers, Garrett Leonard and Nick Matchunis, back.

“We’re gonna rely on those pitchers early,” said Mercer. “We’re gonna make some mistakes on defense, but we’re gonna lean on those pitchers to keep us in games.”

Northwestern has its two middle infielders back, College of Charleston signee and reigning All-Area Player of the Year Dupree Hart and second baseman Tripp Barringer, but the Trojans lack established pitching. They have Taylor to go to, but lack the depth - for now at least - that helped them get to the state championship series last year. Walters said his team walked 23 batters down in Myrtle Beach, and hit four more.

“You’re lucky to go 2-1 with that many,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of arms. But you want pitchers. You want a quality pitch at a quality time.”

Walters’ success at Northwestern stems in part from the middle school team he created six years ago. The program is fully supported by Northwestern baseball - Rock Hill school district doesn’t fund middle school baseball - and it’s created in seventh and eighth graders an understanding of what’s expected when they join the high school teams. Continuity in the program from the youngest kid to the oldest has been influential in prolonging the unbeaten run in region play the last few years.

“We want to be consistent every year,” said Walters. “The smaller ones get to watch Dupree (Hart) and the Josh Crumps, and the way they do it and come up through the program. I don’t think we do anything here any more special than anyone else in the state. We just try to teach basic baseball and we’ve got good kids.”

That feeder system will be put to the test this season.

Northwestern lost standouts Josh Crump and Garrett Rast to Division I college baseball and only has three starters returning - Hart, Barringer and Taylor. And Region 3-4A is as good as it has been in years; Rock Hill and Nation Ford are ranked in the state’s preseason polls and have lineups filled with future college players. Gaffney joins the region and is off to a good start with pitcher Josh Gregory throwing a no-hitter against Woodruff last week. Clover and York both have new coaches, and elevated energy levels in their programs.

Any one of those teams could end the Trojans’ dominance of Region 3-4A. To prevent that, Walters needs his new starters to step to the fore and quickly.

“These kids have been waiting for their time to play, and hopefully they’re ready,” he said.

This story was originally published March 9, 2015 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Northwestern baseball’s region winning streak faces toughest year yet."