Classic baseball as it ought to have been played

One thing was absolutely sure: Santa Fe College's baseball team was going to the Florida region Division I junior college tournament at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland. The Saints had won the Mid-Florida Conference regular-season title.

The question now was: Who else was going to represent the conference?

Three teams -- and myself -- arrived in Sanford for the weekend-long tournament involving College of Central Florida, host Seminole State, and the team I was there to watch, St. Johns River State.

If he were still around and had his faculties about him, my boss, Andy, would have gladly jumped in his car and headed south to Sanford for this event. The relationship he had with longtime Vikings coach and Palatka native Ross Jones was simply stupendous.

With myself in the role of sports editor since Andy had retired the previous December, it was now my turn to cover the Vikings' baseball team. I certainly didn't have the lattitude that Andy had because as much as I appreciated the work my new assistant, Anthony, had done, he was not me. I could lay out a whole sports section for Andy. Anthony wasn't me and I had to cover this basebal team when I could.

But we had no Sunday paper ... or Monday for that matter. So it gave me some free time to go down to Sanford and see the fate of the Vikings in this magical weekend. I arrived just mere minutes at Seminole State's field and quickly got to the field and scribbled both lineups down before the noon first pitch.

First up was St. Johns River against Central Florida. The winner was going to get Seminole in a best-of-3 series. The Vikings left little in doubt for this game, blasting the Patriots, 11-2, aided by home runs by Tripp McKinlay, Daniel Labrador, and two home runs by all-conference catcher Jakob Runnels.

Rumor had it that the air conditioning was not working properly in the Central Florida on the way down to Sanford. Well, now they could open the windows wide again for the uncomfortable trip home.

With the Patriots gone, the Vikings were now set to face off with the Seminole Raiders, who had beaten the Vikings three out of four games in the conference season. And as the second game began, I started wondering why I'm not feeling comfortable. Turns out temperatures were sizzling in the low 90s on this day.

Now I was just hoping to survive from my perch on top of where the scoreboard operator and public address guy were situated in comfortable climes.

Game one in this three-game series was no contest as Seminole pitcher Rese Brown retiring the last 19 Vikings hitters he faded and striking out 11 batters in a victory for which he threw 107 pitches in the complete game. He allowed just two hits. One of the hits in the 5-1 victory was a home run by Ramses Cordova.

That was it for the first day. St. Johns went back to Palatka and the Vikings were down 1-0 in the best-of-3 series. Since I did not have enough money on me to take a hotel, I, too, drove back to Palatka and got a halfway decent night's sleep.

By 10 a.m., I was back in the car and back on the road to Sanford for the second game ... maybe game three. The Vikings needed a better performance at the plate to have a shot at this or else Seminole was celebrating a championship.

They more than responded on yet another hot day in Seminole County. The Vikings blasted Raiders pitching to the tune of 13 runs on 10 hits, but two swings generating seven of the 13 runs. J.J. Sousa hit a three-run home run, then it was Runnels delivering a grand slam to end the 13-4 game.

This was set up the deciding third game ... and become an all-time classic.

Seminole starter Cameron Carter was looking like Brown did in the first game. He had the Vikings eating out of his hands through six innings as the Raiders held a 2-0 lead. Then came the seventh.

Runnels doubled to get things going. And Cordova once again proved to be clutch as he blasted a two-run home run to left field to tie the game up.

Starter Zane Stephens had done yeoman work for five innings to start, allowing two runs, then left Tanner Bauman came in and relieved Stephens and went four solid innnings of shutout ball.

The 10th inning arrived. Connor Morgan, struggling with three strikeouts on the day, hit a slow roller toward left reliever Garrett Hester. Hester had a hard time picking the ball up, then threw a strike to first baseman Edgar Alvarez as Morgan slid into the base.

He slid in safely. The first-base umpire didn't see it that way. Jones went ballistic as he stormed out of the dugout to argue his case.

"It's not even close," Jones told me afterward. Then he added, "I should have gotten thrown out for that. That was a terrible, terrible call that changes the conplexion of the inning."

In the bottom of the 10th, it was Seminole's turn. Bauman walked Jaylen Youngs and Marcos Sevillano. Bauman was about out of gas and Jones knew it. He took Bauman and brought in reliever Jordan Wimpleberg to keep things going. But Wimpleberg walked Corey King to load the bases.

Load the bases with no outs. The last rites were being administered to this Vikings team that kept fighting and fighting and fighting all throughout the weekend. It was simply one batter at a time and Wimpleberg had Alvarez up first. He got a comebacker for which he threw to Runnels at the plate to get Youngs. Then Wimpleberg struck out Zach Levenson for the second out. He got out of trouble by getting Luke Hatcher into a forceout at second.

Problem was the Vikings couldn't get anything off Hester in the 11th. Suddenly, they were back to having to defend in the bottom half of the frame.

Christian Webb put a perfect bunt down that third baseman McKinlay could not get to for a base hit.

I suddenly had this "Uh-oh, these guys want to end things now" feeling.

Hunter Noblitt walked and when Wimpleberg attempted to pick off Webb at second, the throw sailed into the outfield to move Webb to third and be the winning run nd Noblitt to second. It was only the second error of the three-game series between the teams.

Yes ... two total errors. Both teams played baseball the way it ought to have been played.

Marcerio Allen hit a grounder to sure-handed second baseman Chase Malloy, who looked Webb back to third, then threw to first for the first out.

That brought up Youngs, the team's steady catcher. Wimpleberg got ahead at 1-2 on Youngs. Then he got too much of the plate on his next pitch.

Youngs stroked a shot between the diving McKinlay and Cordova into left field to score Webb and win the game and spot in the state tournament in 11 innings, 3-2.

Vikings players walked off the field slowly as Raiders players charged the field behind them to jump on Youngs for the winning hit. And after about 10 minutes, Vikings players stopped lingering on the field and headed onto the bus to head back to Palatka.

But I wanted to talk to Malloy, whose dad was a longtime scout with the Philadelphia Phillies. Malloy reminded me of another fantastic Vikings player, Myles Straw, who made it to the Major Leagues. He may not have had quite the talent, but Malloy had the heart and determination to lead this team.

"It's been a battle ... a dogfight .. between us all year," he said of the rivalry with Seminole. "And they came out on top. Things fell for us in (Game 2), but they didn't in this (last) game. That's just baseball."

You could see he was disheartened. Malloy stayed a third year at SJRSC after COVID-19 shut the 2020 season down a month or so into the season. Now the dream of going to the state tournament was gone.

A tired Jones chose to wax philosophically after the deciding game.

"There was a lot of baseball in the last 31 hours," he started. "They never stopped competing. That's the thing to me I was proud of. We had good at-bats. We hit the ball hard, just right at people. Just one of those games where you ask, 'What do you do?'"

Turns out they couldn't do any more than they did in four games in a two-day period. I wished coach Jones a safe trip back and headed to my car. Because I got to sit inside the protected area with the scoreboard operator and the PA guy on this Sunday, I didn't get lobster red like I attempted the day before.

 I drove away from Jack Patelias Field up College Road to Lake Mary Road and heading toward I-4 to go home. Before 7 p.m., I arrived at the McDonald's near the I-4 entrance way and stopped for dinner. That gave me a chance to eat and reflect through my notes the greatness of this game I just covered most recently.

I knew it was the best baseball game I covered at either high school or college level. The Vikings had their opportunities, but in the end, the Raiders took advantage of the last one that mattered.

By the next day, I woke up that morning and had written 37 inches -- or over 1,100 words -- on my laptop on the weekend games. I got red from the first day, but I was entertained by the end.

Baseball as it ought to have been played. I came to that conclusion one last time.

One more footnote to that weekend: I had taken a lot of pictures of the four games, but this one stands out the most. It's Wimpleberg coming off the mound dejectedly while Seminole players were rushing on the field to jump on and celebrate with Youngs.

I submitted this photo for the Florida Press Club annual contest for best action shot in my division.

I won. It was the first time I ever won with a photograph I took.

Guess I'm not the complete hack I claim to be.