LIONS HOST HUDSON TONIGHT | Series continues Friday in Lufkin
Every heard Jim Croce’s “Don’t Mess Around With Jim?”
The song talks about a tough guy named “Big Jim Walker,” the “King of 42nd Street,” who apparently hustled a guy named Willie “Slim” McCoy out of some money shooting pool.
Hear it here: “Don’t mess around with Jim.”
Slim is warned by the people who know Jim that “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape;
You don’t spit into the wind; You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.”
But Willie came to get his money back.
And by the end of the song, they’re singing about Slim. “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape;
you don’t spit into the wind; you don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger; and you don’t mess around with Slim!”
Henderson (13-14-2), the fourth seed from District 17-4A, takes on District 18-4A champ Lufkin Hudson (22-7-1) tonight, a 6 p.m. start.
Game two will be Friday night at Lufkin Hudson, a 5 p.m. first-pitch, and a game three, if they need it, will be shortly after game two concludes Friday.
The series had been planned for a Thursday night start, but expected rainy weather forced the re-schedule.
At any rate, Henderson coach Jordan O’Bannon and the Lions are going to try and play the role of Slim in this series.
It won’t be easy. The Hornets are an established program coming off a the long-term tenure of recently-retired coach Glen Kimble, who finished his career with a 509-284-4 record, with 13 district championships, 11 trips to the regional quarterfinals, a 13-time district coach of the year.
And current coach Tanner Hines is one of his former students. Hines is in his first year as head coach after Kimble retired on Jan. 31.
Hines played his college ball at San Jacinto and Stephen F. Austin.
He’s got the Hornets rockin.’
They’re 22-7-1 on the season, 9-1 overall, and the top of the heap of a district that included Palestine and Bullard, also good baseball teams. Bullard was a 25-game winner that finished second.
In the lineup for Hudson in the series:
- Senior James Mitchell, an infielder and a pitcher. Mitchell bats .295 and has 21 RBI on the season, and is first-team all-district.
- Senior pitcher and first baseman Nolan Larsen, a first-team all-district choice on his way to SFA next season.
- Senior Diesel Gonzalez, an infielder and pitcher with 25 RBI and three home runs this season, a first-team all-district player.
- Senior shortstop Nicholas Gardner, a .379 hitter with three doubles and a home run this year, second-team all-district.
- Sophomore Kolt Larsen, a sophomore that’s batted .314 this year with six doubles, a third-team all-state selection en route to the University of Houston.
- Sophomore Cutter Warren, an outfielder and pitcher with a .339 batting average, four doubles and four triples, and a first-team all-district player.
Here’s the good news for the Lions: Lufkin Hudson was looking pretty indestructible, but they’ve lost two of their last three, both the losses out of district (to Nacogdoches and Orangefield).
Henderson, meanwhile, has built a reputation as a bit of a giant-killer themselves in 2024. Under O’Bannon, in his first year of trying to build the Lions’ program, Henderson has had to face three strong programs in Spring Hill, Carthage and Kilgore, and has had success. The Lions didn’t beat Carthage this season, but did beat Kilgore, at Driller Park, losing to the Bulldogs on two other occasions, and did beat eventual district champ Spring Hill in the final week and a half of the season.
In fact, Henderson comes into the playoffs on a three-game winning streak, and has won five of its last seven, including that win over the Panthers.
Henderson and Lufkin Hudson did play early in the year, in the third game of the season in tournament play, with Hudson taking a 7-1 win.
But O’Bannon and his team have gotten better. Of the Lions’ 14 losses, four of them have been by one run.
Henderson comes into tonight’s game led by senior shortstop/ pitcher and 17-4A offensive most valuable player Deshawn Jackson, senior second baseman J.T. Howard, senior catcher and second-team all-district standout Aden Butler, and sophomore Macen Jones.
O’Bannon is assisted by Ronnie Hendrix, Breon Ector and Dalvin Manns.