NEW ALBANY — Jacob Humbers wasn’t sure what to expect from his first summer in the Cotton States Baseball League.
“I was a little nervous coming out here because a lot of the guys are older than me, obviously,” said the 2022 Heritage Academy graduate. “I’m probably the youngest one out here.”
But that’s where Zac Butler and the rest of the Hill Country Generals came in.
The former New Hope High School catcher and Humbers’ other teammates helped the newcomer adjust to his first year in the New Albany-based summer league.
“To get people like Zac to take me in and talk to me all the time, it makes it feel like home,” Humbers said. “It’s a pretty cool atmosphere out here.”
So far this summer, Humbers and Butler have been the Golden Triangle constants leading the Generals to a 12-3 start in the CSBL’s collegiate division. The team also features seven of Butler’s teammates at East Mississippi Community College.
“It’s been a good summer,” said Generals coach Jeffrey Cook, formerly the head coach at Columbus High School. “The guys have played pretty good. The East Mississippi guys and Golden Triangle guys have played really well.”
Humbers and Butler are joined by former West Point catcher John Austin Ricks, now at Southwest Mississippi Community College.
The Generals’ roster features 13 players from northeast Mississippi as well as Cameron Matous of Southaven; Elijah Robinson of Cordova, Tennessee; and Evan Radford and Alex Wilson of Hoover, Alabama.
But not everyone was available for Friday night’s game against the Golden Triangle Jets, whose name is misleading: The 2022 Jets feature no players from the area.
And they almost had no players at all.
Jets coach Brandon Montgomery, the CSBL all-time leader in games played, added another appearance to the ledger by filling in at first base for five of the contest’s seven innings.
The Generals, meanwhile, were down to nine players flat, including two players called up from the CSBL high school league.
Radford, who is transferring to EMCC from Southern Miss, is the Generals’ leading hitter with a .500 clip, but he missed Friday’s game. Peeko Townsend, the team leader with five home runs, was on vacation. Caleb Hobson of UT Martin, hitting .405, was also absent to attend a pre-draft camp.
It added up to a 9-4 win for the Jets, who pulled ahead on a pair of errors in the fourth inning and added a three-run double in the sixth.
Given their roster attrition and their scorching start, the Generals certainly weren’t deflated by the defeat.
“We’ve had a really good start to the year, and we were hoping to keep it going,” Butler said. “We were shorthanded tonight, so we did the best we could.”
Butler had just 13 at-bats in his first season at EMCC and said getting more reps in the CSBL has been beneficial for his game.
Hitting a cool .469 after a 2-for-2 showing with two walks Friday, the former New Hope standout admitted the competition in New Albany is merely “alright,” but it can still help.
“I didn’t really play much this year during college ball, so it’s nice coming out here and getting some ABs and playing the field and pitching,” Butler said.
His EMCC teammates joining him on the Generals include Radford, first baseman Carson Gault — hitting .391 with a team-high 17 RBIs — and Cook’s son Jackson, who has a 4.24 ERA in 17 innings pitched.
Butler hopes the Lions can improve on their 28-19 record in 2022, which came with an NJCAA Region 23 tournament appearance.
“Hopefully we win it all,” he said. “We made it pretty far this previous year, so I hope we can make it back and just get a little further this time.”
Humbers, meanwhile, is gearing up for his first season at Meridian Community College. He transferred from Caledonia High School to Heritage Academy before the 2022 season, playing his final high school campaign with the Patriots.
Just like his transition to New Albany, it wasn’t easy — at first.
“It was a little nerve-racking,” Humbers said. “I just wanted to be treated right, so I just went down there. I came down there and it felt like home, honestly. It was really cool how they opened arms to me and I just felt like I was one of them.”
The versatile Humbers is listed as a middle infielder and pitcher on the Generals’ site but played both left and right field on Friday. Hitting .314 with a 1.64 ERA in 11 innings on the mound, he says he wants to “come down there and win” in his first collegiate season.
Just like he’s done with the Generals so far.
“The first game, I knew we were going to be pretty good,” Humbers said. “We all come out here and have fun. That’s really the best part — come out here and have some fun and play some good ball.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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