Northside defeats Columbus in extras after home-plate collision
Northside first baseman Kenny Harrell stood at third base in the top of the ninth inning when Patriots third baseman Waggener Davidson hit a shallow fly ball toward right field.
Harrell patiently waited for Northside assistant Steve Sparks to wave him home to try and break a 1-1 tie with region rival Columbus (7-7). After Blue Devils right fielder Clayton Duncan made the catch, Sparks said ‘go,’ and Harrell took off.
What happened next will not soon be forgotten by either side.
As Harrell made his way toward home, he collided with Columbus catcher Gage Dempsey, who had been awaiting Duncan’s throw. Dempsey was knocked over and couldn’t hold onto the ball, allowing Harrell to score what would be the game-winning run in a 2-1 victory.
“I was coming down the line, and I saw (Dempsey) was creeping up the line,” said Harrell, who went 1-for-2 with an RBI in the victory. “My coach always told me if he’s up the line, I can’t really slide. The only choice I had was to go right through him.”
After Harrell scored, Columbus head coach Chad Mathis came out of the dugout to make his case to the home plate umpire, but the run stood.
“Technically, the runner is supposed to make an attempt to avoid the catcher, but I’m not going to blame us losing on that,” Mathis said. “We didn’t execute.”
Northside head coach Dee Miller chalked up the home-plate collision to the nature of a tight play coming in a crucial moment of a game.
“The throw took Dempsey up the line a little bit, and it was just a bang-bang play,” Miller said. “Kenny was just trying to get to the plate, they ran into each other, and the ball came loose.”
The tension surrounding the final play didn’t subside once the final out was recorded. Once the game was over, the normal routine of the teams shaking hands was broken up after words apparently were exchanged between players on both teams. The teams separated themselves and headed back to their respective dugouts before any further damage was done.
“When you play games amongst friends, and guys from both teams are friends, they get real competitive against each other,” Miller said. “Guys in that dugout have a great fire and competitiveness about them, and our guys do, too. Sometimes it’s hard to shut that off.”
Tuesday’s matchup pitted the top two teams from Region 1-4A last season, and judging by the latest showdown, the two could be squaring off for that title again. The victory for Northside (6-8), which won the region in 2016, was something Miller believed can carry a great deal of weight even this early into the season.
“It means a lot for us moving forward,” Miller said. “This was a group that came in with not a lot of experience, and we’ve gained experience over the first 13 games. It’s good to see that the production is starting to roll over in the games and do things that will lead us to a win.”
The collision at the plate proved to be a contentious game-deciding play that most won’t soon forget. Looking back at what happened, Harrell broke it down in three distinct pieces.
“(Duncan) caught it, coach Sparks sent me, and that was it,” Harrell said. “That’s all she wrote.”
This story was originally published March 14, 2017 at 8:23 PM with the headline "Northside defeats Columbus in extras after home-plate collision."