Old Town baseball coach Justin Crisafulli thought the game was over.
Then his left fielder and catcher saved the day.
With the Old Town Coyotes and Hermon Hawks tied 1-1 in the bottom of the last inning, things did not look good for Old Town. Hermon had runners on second and third base with no outs.
A fly ball to the outfield seemed certain to end things in Hermon’s favor, but Coyote left fielder Michael Garland made a catch, fired the ball to home plate and catcher Nate Baker applied an acrobatic tag just in time to help send the game to extra innings.
You can watch that game-saving play here. Old Town went on to win the contest 4-1 in eight innings on Tuesday evening.
“As soon as the ball was hit I’m like, ‘Oh, this game is over,’” Crisafulli said. Then his left fielder and catcher proved him wrong.
Old town pitcher Julian Duty got the win, and was on the mound when his teammates combined for the play of the game.
“I saw him hit that, I was like, ‘I need him to catch that and just throw it as hard as he could,’” Duty said about Garland’s effort in the outfield. “He did a great job. He caught it. I saw Nate grab it right here and dive to the kid and I was like, ‘wow’, that was great.”
Crisafulli said it was a scenario that the team had prepared for in practice.
“Michael got under it, made a great throw. We worked on it in practice,” Crisafulli said. “Nate made a great tag. On that second half of that catch, Nate had to actually move his body, almost dove and got him out.”
After that improbable double play, Duty got a groundball out and Old Town hung on to send the game to extra innings. The Coyotes scored three runs in the top of the eighth and went on to win 4-1.
