Good Hope has won 4 straight after strong showing in tourney

Michael Cummings

GOOD HOPE — For Mitch Witcher, 2009 is starting to feel a lot like 1989.

With an 8-5 win Thursday night over Holly Pond, Witcher’s Good Hope High baseball team won the program’s first Cullman County championship since the 1989 season — when Witcher was a junior on the Raiders roster.

Thanks to Thursday’s win — and a bet Witcher made with his players — the Good Hope boss is sporting a whole new look.

One that hasn’t been around since the late 80s.

“I look like I’m in the ninth grade again, I guess,” said Witcher, who had to shave his trademark goatee after the Raiders’ title game triumph.

For those that know the Good Hope coach, the unshaven look must be a bit jarring. After all, Witcher hasn’t gone clean shaven since high school.

But while the repercussions from Thursday night’s game might be a little unfamiliar to Witcher, the win itself wasn’t a complete shock.

Though the Raiders came into the tournament with a .500 record, Witcher knew just what his team was capable of doing.

“We thought we had a pretty good shot, as good as anybody else,” he said. “We started 4-1, but then we had a stretch where we didn’t play so well.

“We had a couple games where errors hurt us a little, but it turned out all right because people weren’t talking about us.”

After winning four straight games, people might start talking about Good Hope (8-5) now. But according to Witcher, the Raiders might still be chasing another Cullman County school when the season starts to wind down.

“We know how good some of the other teams in the county are,” said Witcher, whose team beat Hanceville and West Point in the early rounds of the county tournament. “With Vinemont, I think we’ll still be chasing them,”

Under first-year coach C.J. Shearer — a Cullman High graduate — Vinemont has shown steady improvement this season. Featuring a solid starting rotation, the Eagles have been one of the most improved teams in the county this year.

But Good Hope got some solid pitching of its own during the county tournament despite a wrist injury to reliever Jacob Overton.

Sophomore Scott Motes gave up just one run in the Raiders’ opener against Hanceville on Tuesday before Kyle Smith out-dueled West Point’s Derek Basinger in Thursday’s semifinals.

Matt Blackmon continued the run in the title game, striking out 10 Broncos in a complete game.

While the pitching itself wasn’t surprising to Witcher, the length of each outing was.

“We got two real good outings out of Kyle Smith and Matt Blackmon,” he said. “I was a bit surprised about them going seven innings. I expected them to go about five innings, but they surprised me a bit there.”

The county championship added another item to the list of superlatives for the current crop of Good Hope’s boys athletes. In addition to earning a baseball title, the Raiders also took the county basketball championship and made the first round of the state football playoffs.

“I’ve got a real good group of seniors,” said Witcher, an assistant coach on Good Hope’s football team. “This is really a great group of kids. They’re fun to be around, and we get along really well.”

Michael Cummings can be reached by e-mail at michaelc@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 258.