There are practically hundreds of events I've covered in all facets of sports over my 37-plus years as a journalist. There are those events that are memorable for many a reason, some for a great occurrence, others for record-breaking moments, and some because of the magnitude of what was happening.
But there are the rare events I've covered where Rod Serling needed to be called in to narrate because they were that strange and that preposterous in what happened.
One of those moments may be the most bizarre event I ever covered in all these years. It was Monday night, April 18, 2011. It was the opening round of the District 4-4A softball tournament between third-seeded and host Palatka and sixth-seeded St. Augustine.
Palatka's Panthers were expected to win the game. They came into the game with a 14-11 record in what could be considered an up-and-down season. One of the biggest adjustments these Panthers had to make was new coach Leslie Lewis. I always felt like Lewis inherited two strikes against her when she took the job because she was taking it from a very demanding, but popular coach in Rick Breed. Breed had been with the program for 14 years, first as the longtime assistant to Curt Smith, then taking the program over in 2008. Unfortunately for Breed, he was a government worker and whatever his agency
wanted to do with his job, he had to do it no matter the hour, so he couldn't keep the job at that time.
Breed could be feisty. He could be sarcastic. He could be a grizzly bear, but there was one thing about his players that made him who he was -- he was behind them 100%, And his players loved him, gruff exterior at times and all.
So being a new coach was a bad place to be if you were Lewis. This team had some talent, too, starting with senior third baseman Lizz Smith and junior pitcher Jessica Gornto. There was also junior designated player Dawn Averett and senior center fielder Kori Osteen.
Gornto was the rock in the center of the diamond in the circle. And she thrived as the "go-to" pitcher. In 2009 as a freshman, she was the pitcher of Palatka's last district championship team, and faced down a terrific Dunnellon lineup in the regional semifinals before the Dunnellon High bats got going and put the Panthers away, 8-0. Trust me, it was a closer game than the final score indicated.
So after I did my normal routine at work, which was get the scoreboard page set up and get some other things out of the way, it was back up St. Johns Avenue to Mellon Road and into the sports parking lot where the track, tennis courts and softball field were all in the same area. It's normally hard to get a halfway decent parking spot when a lot is going on, but at this point, it was just the softball team playing, so getting a parking spot wasn't too bad.
I get to the field and upstairs to the press box overlooking the softball field. Now, my mind is a little rusty here as to who was in the press box with me this particular night, but I already was tipped off that some of the Panther players came to the field on this evening not in the bestest of shape. Seems earlier in the afternoon, they ate something during lunch together that did not sit well in their stomachs. So a number of players came in with stomach issues.
Oh, boy. Here we go. Now was this going to give a St. Augustine team that was 8-15 going into this game any ideas of an upset?
Umm, no. Not at all. There was a reason why the Panthers beat the rival Yellow Jackets during the season and beat them handily, too. Even with stomach issues, these Panthers were still head and shoulders above the Jackets.
Honestly, I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary on this night whatsoever. This should be a "take care of business" kind of game and get ready for the next game in the semifinal round.
But this night was going to be a wee bit different.
Right from the very first batter, as a matter of fact, this game was going to be a little different. Hannah Hudson came up against Gornto to start. And on the first pitch, she's trying to slap-hit her way on ... except she made the mistake of stepping out of the batter's box when she hit the ball. Automatic out to start it off.
Though Sam Baker, the No. 2 hitter, walked on four pitches, she was forced out at second and K.K. Shaw struck out to end the inning. Onto the bottom of the first.
Sierra Riter is pitching for the Yellow Jackets and I don't exactly see her blowing fastballs by this Panthers lineup. The first hitter is Smith. She hits a laser only to have it snagged by first baseman Baker for the first out.
That now brings up Osteen. The count gets to 1-2. Riter sets her up with a low pitch that Osteen waves at for strike three. But the ball goes off catcher Kiersten O'Niel's glove. She has to go track the ball down, then make a throw to first to complete the out.
That's when the three-ring circus parked its tents and made itself at home on Palatka's field.
O'Niel's throw to Baker was nowhere near the mark and scooted out to the outfield. Second baseman Lauren Avolos and right fielder Linzy Hayes were literally M.I.A. on the play. The ball rolled all the way to the right-field fence and Osteen kept running, then got the windmill go-ahead arm wave of Lewis to continue home to score the game's first run.
On an inside-the-park strikeout.
Yup. This St. Augustine team was bad.
Riter struck out freshman shortstop Ashley Burney and Gornto, and the inning was over. But things were about to get even more bizarre after the bottom of the first took place.
I'm literally watching the Panthers take the field from my perch up in the press box. I see eight Panthers going out to the field, and one leaving the dugout and walking past everyone on the way to the parking lot beyond the outfield fence, getting in her car and driving away.
It was Osteen. She just left. And was never to come back again. In all my years of covering sports, this one I never saw -- a player just up and leaving. This one had nothing to do with a stomach problem. This had everything -- I found later -- to do with her relationship with Lewis. Osteen was one of the more devoted players under Breed. And she and Lewis didn't exactly see eye to eye.
But in spite of all the differences, you stay! You just don't up and leave ... in the niddle of a game! Those of us in the press box knew what was happening and this was the culmination of a year's worth of frustration. In the end, she hurt herself and lost her All-County bid to another player for just walking out the way she did.
And if that wasn't enough, Shelby Moody, the team's second baseman, had to come out because she wasn't feeling well. So Hunter Harper had to play right field, Shelisa Oliver came into the game to play second base and Katelynn Smith, Lizz's younger sister and freshman, had to move into Osteen's center field position.
On top of that, when you looked at the scoreboard, you didn't see any runs up there. The scoreboard wasn't working! I guess it cost a lot to get an electrician to come out to the school on this particular night.
As stated before, this was Rod Serling territory we were traipsing into this night.
Gornto got things back to some kind of normalcy and showed her dominance by getting the three hitters in the second inning -- Hayes, O'Niel and Teri Tate -- on strikeouts.
In the bottom of the second, Averett was hit by a pitch with one out and Allison Lewis singled her to second. Harper hit a flyball to center field where Tate was. Except Tate dropped the ball, then punctuated the error with a throwing error to score Averett to make it 2-0. One out later, Smith hit a groundball that shortstop Taylor Magnan flubbed for the team's fourth error of the game, bringing in Lewis to make it 3-0.
Gornto went strikeout, comebacker, strikeout in the third to give her five strikeouts in three innings.
In the bottom of the third, Arielle Driggers singled to center field with two outs and Averett belted a shot that almost cleared the fence. It hit the fence and went for a double as Driggers, running on the hit, scored to make it 4-0.
The teams played a scoreless fourth inning and we were about to get into the fifth inning. Somewhere in the top of the fifth inning, I hear a noise. Then I look down on the field ... the sprinkler system went off!
Can anything else go strangely wrong?! The delay was about five minutes, and before long the teams went back out to play. Gornto struck out two of the three outs she had in the inning to give her eight strikeouts on the evening.
The Panthers put this thing away with four runs in the bottom of the fifth as Burney singled, Gornto walked and one out later, Averett won a 12-pitch battle with Riter by hitting her second double of the game to bring in Burney and Gornto to make it 6-0. Lewis would single Averett in and Lewis would eventually score on a Harper sacrifice fly.
At 8-0, the lead was safe in Gornto's hands. St. Augustine, though, wanted to send a message that it was there not just for purposes of background art. Baker singled and eventually came home on a Lydia Hough passed ball in the sixth. In the seventh, Tate reached on an infield hit and eventually came home on a Gornto wild pitch.
And when Gornto made Hudson the 10th strikeout victim of the night, this bizarre hour and 45 minutes was over in an 8-2 Palatka win.
Gornto called it "a little different from your normal game." That was an understatement.
I remember talking to coach Lewis afterward. I asked what happened with Osteen and she confirmed my thoughts on the matter.
"Kori is done with the team," she said. "'She's leaving' was what she said and then she just walked out and left."
I go back down St. Johns after the bizarre events of this Monday night back to work and find out that No. 2 seed and tournament host Ponte Vedra was upset by No. 7 seed Menendez. If Palatka could beat Menendez, it was on to to the district final and the state tournament as an automatic district finalist.
But the Panthers were stunned by the Falcons a couple of nights later and did not make the state tournament.
Lewis left after one year as coach and Averett's dad, Todd, who had experience with coaching most of these Panther players through club ball, took over in 2012 as coach. But he gave it back up to Breed, who in 2013 returned as coach and got Palatka back to the state tournament as a district runners-up, losing the final, 1-0, in controversial fashion to North Marion.
Palatka got to host only one postseason game since that night in 2011. The next year, the Panthers lost a district semifinal to Belleview, 2-0.
I think about the bizarre events -- and unfortunate ones -- from that night in 2011 and I still have a hard time trying to truly describe what I saw.
Every so often, you get lucky with a game like this one.
Or unlucky. You decide.
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