The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
The last games of the season for Rebel baseball ended in the second round of the regional tournament against the number one seed - Macomb came ahead in the bottom of the seventh 2-1 leaving fans questioning the umpire's call.Rebel's 2002 Final Game, A Hard One To Lose
Before we get to the final game, on Monday, May 13th, the Southern Rebels hosted Bushnell PCA in the first round of regional tournament play. Christopher Wisslead started on the mound for the Rebels against Bushnell and pitched a complete game shutout. Joshua Ragar hit his seventh homerun of the season. The Rebels came away with a 7-0 win to set up a big game against #1 seed in the tournament- Macomb.
Wednesday, May 15, Macomb came to Stronghurst for the second round and won the coin toss and was designated the home team. Quinn Leath started on the mound for the Rebels and pitched a super game. It was the dualing banjos' as both teams played good baseball getting out of several jams during the game. Neither team scored until the bottom of the third when Macomb's leadoff hitter hit a blast into the wind over the left field fence for a 1-0 lead. The Rebels came right back in the top of the 4th with a run of their own to tie up the ballgame 1-1. Nick Morris lead off with a double to right center field and scored on a single by Quinn Leath.
Both teams were held scoreless until the 7th inning. Southern started out with a double by Matt McIntire. Macomb intentionally walked Joshua Ragar with first open to keep the double play ball intact and unfortunately for the Rebels, that's exactly what happened to Christopher Wisslead.
McIntire moved to 3rd on the play, and was only 90 feet away from home and the lead. Again, the Rebels just couldn't score the go ahead run when Nick Morris hit a grounder to the shortstop for the third out. Macomb came to the plate in the bottom of the 7th, looking for the lead and the win.
How that was accomplished will be a topic of conversation for some time to come. The lead off batter hit a single to left field. The next batter tried to sacrifice him over to second with a bunt, but hit a pop up to a diving Quinn Leath. The ball dropped just out of Leath's reach, however, Josh Ragar came out from behind the plate and threw out the lead runner at second. Macomb then got a sacrifice to move the runner over to second but now had two outs. Then, Macomb hit a sharply hit ball to Nick Morris at third base. Nick fielded the ball cleanly, but threw the ball into the dirt at first for the error.
Macomb now had runners at the corners and two outs. The Macomb hitter hit a fly ball to right field where Matt McIntire was coming in to make the catch. Depending on who was watching the play, there is a difference of opinion.
Matt seemed to have made the catch but on the transfer from his glove dropped the ball. Unfortunately for the Rebels, the umpire felt he did not have control of the ball, therefore allowing the man on third to score for Macomb, seemingly stunning both teams and their fans.
Matt McIntire had three great plays earlier in the game to help keep Macomb from scoring. He made a great running catch in deep right field, threw out a base runner trying to advance to third with a tremendous throw, and kept another runner from scoring from third with a great throw to the plate. The Rebels ended their season with a record of 16-10.
Ending Rebel careers were seniors Joshua Ragar, Ryan Keever, Adam Burrell, Bill Ford and Mike Lenahan.
Good luck to the Rebels next year, and to all future Rebel baseball players.
Game Stats:
McIntire: 2/4, Single, Double, 2 K
Ragar: 1/3, Single, Walk
Wisslead: 1/4, Single
Morris: 1/4, Double
Corzatt: 0/3
Leath: 1/3, Single, RBI
Keever: 0/2, Walk
Rothzen: 1/3, Single
Burrell: 1/3, Single
Pitching Stats:
Leath: 7 innings, 29 batters faced, 2 runs, 7 hits, 4K, 1 BB
Rebels Homerun-a-thon ends with 22 homeruns for the season.
Rebel players will be contacting all those who have pledged. The Rebel players and coaches expressed their appreciation to all who have pledged your support to the team.
Joshua Ragar...............6
Christopher Wisslead...6
Matthew McIntire..........4
Brandon Rothzen......... 3
Ryan Keever................ 1
Nick Morris...................1
Mike Lenahan.............. 1