Baseball: Winder-Barrow freshman House homers, pitches Bulldoggs past ...

Over the course of his youth baseball career, Brady House has emerged as one of the top players in the country in his age group. This season the freshman at Winder-Barrow High School has been making his impact felt at the varsity level right away, and that was the case again Monday evening.
House hit a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the fifth inning and pitched his team into the seventh as the fifth-ranked Bulldoggs knocked off crosstown rival Apalachee 4-3 in the first of a three-game GHSA Region 8-AAAAAA series and maintained their one-game lead over Gainesville atop the region standings.
“He’s only 14 years old and you’ve got to remind yourself of that sometimes,” Winder-Barrow coach Brian Smith said of House. “He’s got some ability that’s very special and the even bigger thing than his ability is that’s he’s got some real character and toughness to him. We feel good about it no matter where he is — on the mound, at short, at the plate — because he’s composed the entire time and he’s tough.”
House showed some of that moxie in the top of the fifth inning Monday as the Wildcats threatened to break a 1-1 tie when they loaded the bases with one out on singles by Dawson Matherly, Jarrett Wallace and Hunter Parks. But the right-hander struck out Ryan Crocker and then got Alex Cook to bounce out to third to wiggle out of the jam. Then, with one out in the bottom of the inning, House launched a hanging change-up from Parks way over the left-field wall to put the Bulldoggs (15-8, 8-2 region) up 2-1.
The Bulldoggs added a pair of insurance runs in the sixth — thanks to a couple of Apalachee errors, an RBI single by Trevor Maddox and sacrifice fly by House — and they turned out to be huge.
The Wildcats didn’t go away quietly in the seventh. AJ Forbing led off the inning with a double. He was cut down at third after Bulldogg shortstop Blake Friend made a diving play in the hole to rob a hit from Jarrett Wallace, but Alecsi Lopez doubled in Wallace — on a ball that could have been caught by center fielder Trace Wells but got past him when he fell down — and then scored on a wild pitch to cut the Winder-Barrow lead to 4-3.
After House issued a free pass to Crocker, Smith turned to his son, Zack Smith, for the save attempt. The younger Smith delivered, fanning Cook and then getting Parker Miller to pop out to first and end the game.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats (13-10, 2-8), who had picked up an 8-5 home win over Dacula last Friday to salvage a game in that series, suffered another close loss and saw their fading playoff hopes take another hit. Apalachee sits in sixth place in the region, two games back of fourth-place Dacula and a game behind fifth-place Habersham with five games left — two more against the Bulldoggs and three against Gainesville next week.
The series was set to continue Wednesday at Apalachee and will wrap up Friday at 5:55 p.m. back at Winder-Barrow.
See the full story in the April 11 edition of the Barrow News-Journal.