Columbus sees season come to an end in sweep by Houston County

What if?

It’s the question Columbus will be asking itself after seeing two seventh-inning leads disappear during a doubleheader on Tuesday at Houston County in the Class 5A quarterfinals.

What if the Blue Devils had executed at the plate once or twice more with runners on? What if they had fielded a ball cleanly or been a beat quicker with a throw? What if a handful of close calls hadn’t gone against them one after the other in the most crucial moments of Game 2?

Columbus coach Chad Mathis doesn’t know the answers to those questions, only that his team had a chance to sweep the Bears and instead suffered losses of 5-4 and 8-7, the second in exta innings, to end its season two rounds short of the ultimate goal.

“They fought,” he said of his team. “All throughout these playoffs, they fought. We have gone extra innings. We’ve overcome adversity. Today, we had to finish, and we just came up short.”

The Blue Devils led Game 1 4-2 and Game 2 7-3 entering Houston County’s final at-bat.

In a tie game in the bottom of the sixth of Game 2, Columbus got an RBI double from Blake Hicks, an RBI single from Jackson Mellenberg, a sacrifice fly from Gage Dempsey and one more run on an error to go up 7-3.

They were one out away from finishing the game up 7-4 in the seventh after allowing an RBI fielder’s choice before a couple of defensive miscues allowed the game to continue. Jonathan Brand got Houston County’s Tony Locey to swing and miss on strike three, but the ball was in the dirt. The throw to first hit Locey in the back and richocheted into righ field, allowing a run to score.

“I don’t know how it hit him, but it did,” Mathis said.

Then, a grounder to shortstop was mishandled by Dawson Weaver, allowing two runs in to tie the game and force Columbus to come to bat in the seventh.

With two outs and the bases loaded, Blue Devils third baseman Jack Copley took a pitch on the elbow, which would have driven in the game-winning run. Instead, the umpire ruled Copley reached his arm out in order to get hit and forced him to return to the at-bat. Copley then flied out to end the inning.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Mathis said. “You’re like, ‘This can’t be happening.’ Don’t take this away from my guys and this staff and this team. It’s worked really hard. We put a lot of time and effort into this, and when it’s over you get frustrated because you don’t want them going home with a lot of doubts.”

Columbus was three outs away from a win in Game 1, as well.

It led 4-2 going into the bottom half of the seventh inning. Starting pitcher Cason Greathouse went out to try and finish off the complete game, but allowed an infield single and a clean single to put runners at first and second with nobody out. The Blue Devils made the change to Trent Grantham to close out the game, but a walk on a full count loaded the bases with no outs.

Houston County’s Tanner Hall knocked a single to get one run home and an error in the outfield allowed all the runners to move up another base, including the tying run. Austin Hittinger drove a long ball to the wall next, bringing the walk-off run across the plate.

Despite the losses, Mathis said he saw a lot of fight in his team throughout the playoffs. Each series, Columbus was faced with extra-inning challenges and repeated tight games.

“I saw a lot of fight in my guys,” he said. “We just didn’t execute when we needed to (today). At the end of the day, you’ve got to know you’ve given everything to something, and I’m proud of them.”

This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 7:18 PM with the headline "Columbus sees season come to an end in sweep by Houston County."