Houston County stays alive with walk-off balk, splits quarterfinals doubleheader with Woodward Academy

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — There are a lot of ways to win a baseball game, but a walk-off balk isn’t high on the list of expected outcomes.

Woodward Academy, who won Game 1 10-3 on Friday and controlled most of Game 2, entered the bottom of the seventh up 6-5.

One bullpen shuffle later and Houston County had the bases loaded with two outs, a tie game and Peyton Nauss at the plate.

Three of the first four pitches went for balls and head coach Matt Hopkins pulled Isaiah Galason over, who was on the third base bag, and whispered something in his ear.

“I said, ‘See if we can make him balk,’” Hopkins said. “Fake the steal, you’re a fast guy, they’re worried about you. You’ve ran enough to know how to do this.”

So Galason offered his most dramatic fake, and with a twitch of the War Eagles’ final closer, the officials awarded Galason home and the Bears season stayed alive with a 7-6 victory.

It was a long climb back after HoCo lost some of their energy in Game 1.

They went up 1-0 in the top of the second and “did a job” to a tee, turning Noah Odom’s walk into a run with a sacrifice bunt and fly.

But Woodward Academy opened the bottom up with two straight singles in time for Rolan Potts to send a three-run bomb flying over left field. They added one more run and led 4-1 after two.

The Bears chipped away but never broke through; they hit into double plays in the fifth and sixth innings which erased any kind of late-game momentum. The War Eagles put up another four-run inning in the sixth to seal the game.

Woodward Academy similarly started Game 2 with a three-run second inning to put HoCo in an early deficit. And, likewise, the Bears struggled to build offensive momentum.

When Galason got on base in the fourth inning, he was the first to do so since Ethan Kenney led off the second. He scored on a ground out, but a strikeout reignited the War Eagles’ dugout and HoCo went three-up-three-down in the fifth.

The sixth inning was do or die, down 6-1.

“I think the big thing is, we finally settled in emotionally,” Hopkins said on how the Bears got their energy back. “Ethan Kenney did a fantastic job after a rough start to buy us a couple of innings to get our feet under us.”

Kaiden Harvey led off with a single and Raymond Byrd followed with the same. Galason scored Harvey on a fielder’s choice and Woodward Academy pulled their starter after 5.1 innings. That was all the life they needed.

Kenney walked and Odom’s chopper went to third base for the second out. Freshman George Bassett subbed in and nearly hit into the final out, but instead it was the play that really put the Bears back in the game.

The ball zipped right to the pitcher’s feet, and he fumbled with it and then fell on the way to first base. His throw from the ground was way off and Bassett ended up on second with two runs scored.

“When we started chipping some runs away and got into their bullpen, and they’re in the same boat we are, we hadn’t been in our bullpen all playoffs…You see what happens, things are exposed a little bit. It’s a three-game series, and I thought that we just gave ourselves time to stay in the game.”

HoCo’s freshmen experienced the good, bad and the ugly of a road game deep in the playoffs. Jett Waller, Kaiden Harvey and Jakai Wilson all made great plays but also costly mistakes. There’s a very important lesson to be learned from that kind of ordeal.

“You’re never out of it,” Hopkins said. “We’re going to continue to fight and that’s the expectation with our program…It’s invaluable experience and hopefully not for the future, hopefully for this week and hopefully for a couple more weeks.”

The two pitchers the War Eagles threw in the seventh combined for 24 pitches, a walk and two hit-by-pitches. The latter came back-to-back to tie the game before the walk-off balk.

UP NEXT

After heading home last night, the Bears make the trek back up today at 5 p.m. for Game 3 in their first win-or-go-home contest of the postseason.