Randolph County Legion Walk Off Game 7 Win
July 27th, 2007 Posted in American Legion baseball
(article written by JN)
There is nothing better in baseball than a Game 7 with everything on the line. This Game 7 was to decide who was going to keep playing and go on to the American Legion State Championship in Garner, North Carolina. With everything on the line, these two teams produced one of the best American Legion games of the year. Randolph County, American Legion Post 45 beat South Rowan Legion by a score of 5-4.
The scoring got started in the third inning when Justin Yow, the winning pitcher from Game 6, led off the inning and with the first pitch he saw he belted a solo home run over the leftfield wall to give his team a 1- 0 lead. Ben Bunting was the starting pitcher for Randolph and he got into some trouble in the fifth inning when Bostian lead off the inning with a single. Daniel Wagner was up next and they intentionally walked him and decided to pitch to Justin Lane, but Lane made them pay for making that decision. The runners were moving on the play and Justin Lane hit a line drive in the right centerfield gap bringing both runners around to score and giving South Rowan a 2-1 lead.
C.J. Neal pitching for South Rowan gave up the solo home run in the third, but he settled down, until the home run bug would come back and bite him again in the sixth. Leading off the sixth inning was the starting pitcher Ben Bunting, he was already pulled and was now playing centerfield. Bunting got a pitch up in the zone out over the plate and he drove it to the opposite field over the left field fence to tie the score at two.
Bunting was relieved by Steven Davis in the sixth and he didn’t miss a beat as he got out of a jam in the sixth with a double play and then again in the seventh with back to back strikeouts. It wasn’t until the eighth when South Rowan hitters started to get to him, well only one hitter got to him. Jonathan Basinger took a pitch from Davis and belted a solo home run over the wall in left centerfield. In the bottom half of the eighth with the score 3-2 in favor of South Rowan and their ace on the hill you would think this game was over but this game was far from over it was just getting started.
Walker Snow relieved C.J. Neal after Neal pitched six and two thirds innings and gave up only two runs. Snow was the winning pitcher in Game 1 and 5 and pitching in relief to try to secure this one run lead and get them to Garner for the state championship. Snow hit Neil Pritchard to put the tying run on base and after a sacrifice bunt to get the runner in scoring position, he gets the next guy to ground out to the second baseman to move the runner to third with two outs of the inning. Steven Davis, who gave up the home run in the top half, comes up with two outs and a runner on third and he hits a single that scored the runner from third and ties the score at three.
Neil Pritchard is put in to pitch in the top of the ninth and he is face with the top of the order for South Rowan. After striking out the first guy, Wagner strikes again with a base hit. Pritchard strikes out Lane to give them two outs before they intentionally walk Rudy Brown. Snow comes to the plate with two on and two out and he delivers hitting a line drive up the middle that scores Wagner from second. Snow was pulled for a pinch runner taking him out of the game.
Rudy Brown was sent out to the mound to close out the bottom half of the ninth and send South Rowan to the next round. Windsor led off the inning by hitting a line drive that fell just in front of the leftfielder. With Ben Bunting up and the chance to do some damage the Randolph County coach was in a bind of whether to sacrifice bunt the tying run into scoring position or let your catalyst swing away to try and win the game. Bunting laid down a sacrifice bunt to get the runner into scoring position. The game got very interesting on the next play of the game with one out and the tying run in scoring position. Hahn was up and he hit a fly ball to center and as the centerfielder caught the ball the runner at second started to third before stopping after two steps. The centerfielder sees the runner break and throws to third base and it short hops the third baseman and it hops over the fence. Giving the runner from second since he was headed to third one base and he is awarded home and that ties the score at four. South Rowan’s coaches go out to argue but to no avail. After all the arguinig was over the game wouldn’t last long as Neil Pritchard crushed a walk off home run giving Randolph County a five to four victory.
South Rowan was led at the plate by Daniel Wagner, who recorded three hits, Lane, who had a double that drove in two runs, and Basinger, who had a solo home run. Randolph County was led by Bunting, who hit a home run, Yow, also had a home run, and Neil Pritchard, who had two hits but the biggest being the walk off home run. Randolph County advances to Garner and the state championship.
