Wylie East players run out of the dugout to celebrate with senior Nash Aylor after he scored the winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning in an 8-7 home win over Wylie on Monday, April 21. Photo by Elijah Kloepping / C&S Media
By David Wolman
As Wylie East senior Nash Aylor watched a fly ball hit off the bat of junior Levi Scroggin drop just in front of Wylie senior center fielder Landon Crabill, he heard the voice of Raiders head coach Heath Andrews.
Aylor heeded the words of his coach, took off and slid into third base.
Once he saw that the throw from Crabill bounced out of the reach of Pirates senior third baseman Braeden Ray, Aylor hesitated before he ran down the third-base line and slid head-first into home plate.
Aylor’s Wylie East teammates stormed out of the dugout and mobbed him near home plate to celebrate a thrilling 8-7 win in eight innings over the Pirates on Monday from Wylie East High School.
“I was yelling, ‘it’s down, it’s down, it’s down,'” Andrews said. “Then he takes off and I knew that he was going to be safe at third base. Once I saw the throw was off line, I don’t think that Nash was ready. I was yelling at him to go. And (Wylie catcher) Jagger (Bale) is so fast. I knew that we were going to have to push the issue.”
Aylor’s aggressive base running resulted in Wylie not being able to get off a throw.
“Crazy. Lucky. Lucky and crazy,” Andrews said. “I figured that something was going to have to go our way, like a wild throw, or whatever, because everybody was making routine plays, everybody was doing some things. If they made that throw, it would be a totally different story. That was crazy.”
For a while, it appeared that Wylie East was going to win the game in runaway fashion.
Wylie’s inability to throw strikes was met with great plate discipline by Wylie East. The Raiders drew three walks and scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning while forcing Pirates senior Ben Lindsey to throw 35 pitches. Scroggin opened the scoring by lining an RBI single in left field. Then, following a bases-loaded walk to senior Carter Leonard, Wylie East increased their lead to 3-0 on a fielder’s choice by junior Brandon Johnson.
Wylie East capitalized on two more walks in the second inning to take a 4-0 lead after an RBI sacrifice fly from senior Caleb Vaclavik.
“Ben looked like he kind of lost it a little bit,” Andrews said. “We were trying to be a little more patient, but he’s really good. He shuts people down. When he throws all of those pitches in the first and gets his pitch count up in the second, I didn’t know how much more longer he was going to go. But they’ve got some really good guys in the bullpen. They’re a scrappy team.”
Wylie appeared that it was going to be down for the count multiple times in the game, but the Pirates’ resiliency showed up a short time later.
Senior Bailey Seibert lined a two-run single through the right side in the top of the third inning to reduce Wylie East’s lead to 4-3.
The Raiders capitalized on back-to-back defensive errors by the Pirates, along with an RBI single by senior Victor Zandate, to gain a 6-3 advantage in the home half of the third.
Wylie battled back to tie the score at 6-6 on a Ray triple in the top of the fourth and then took their first lead of the night at 7-6 later in the inning on a Lindsey RBI ground-out.
“It’s hard for me to point to one thing about how we got back into the game,” said Beau Snodgrass, Wylie head coach. “There are so many things that can change the trajectory of a game. They just kept fighting, pitch by pitch, honestly. Midway through the game, I think that we decided that we were going to try to go win, instead of lose. Our demeanor changed a little bit.”
Wylie East rallied to tie the score at 7-7 on an RBI double by freshman Jaxon Ylda in the top of the fifth inning. Ylda was thrown out at third base as he attempted to stretch the play into a triple, but junior Lukas Harold, who led off the frame with a triple, scored easily which tied the score.
Both teams had chances to win the game in the seventh inning, but outstanding plays made by both defenses forced the game into extra innings.
Ylda made a diving catch in left field to rob Bale of the potential go-ahead RBI hit with two outs in the top of the frame.
“Unbelievable,” Andrews said. “He had one drop in the gap, and I think that he was a little embarrassed by that. But I thought that he was going to run through the wall. He’s going to go no matter what. That was a big moment for him, especially with him being a freshman.”
In the bottom of the seventh, Wylie East had the bases loaded with zero outs. However, the Pirates got out of that jam after a 1-2-3 double play turned by pitcher Seibert, catch Bale and first baseman Camp, followed by a great hustle play at second base from junior Riddick McClelland.
“It was huge,” Snodgrass said. “Those are types of situations that you work on all of the time and probably execute about three or four times in a season. They executed it well.”
A defensive error, though, committed by Wylie in the bottom of the eighth inning proved costly as Aylor crossed home plate to win the ballgame for Wylie East.
The two teams will play again Friday night at Wylie.
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