At one point last night, the Bobcats held a four-run lead. Three errors, a home-plate collision and a few missing teeth later, the Musketeers had completed their comeback.
The Bobcats (15-14) committed four errors that directly led to runs, and those mistakes allowed the Musketeers (17-14) to get runners on base and generate six unanswered runs en route to a 7-5 win at Bob Wren Stadium.
Xavier could not have scored as many runs as it did without the help of Ohio’s mishaps. Only three of the seven runs Bobcat pitchers allowed were earned.
“That was the ball game,” coach Joe Carbone said. “We didn’t make the plays we needed to make. We didn’t catch the throws, didn’t make some routine plays on some routine ground balls. When you let teams have the first runner of the inning get on base and no outs, 65 percent of the time, they’re gonna score.”
The Musketeers’ comeback started in the sixth inning with runners at the corners. Trailing 5-1, Mark Elwell hit a would-be double-play ball at shortstop Wes O’Neill, who bobbled the grounder, allowing Xavier’s second run to score. Consecutive errors by catcher Trace Voshell and first baseman Taylor Emody helped the Musketeers tack on two more runs.
The seventh inning started out looking much like the sixth with a runner reaching base on an infield error.
But two batters later, Brett Barber hit Xavier’s Phil Bauer in the mouth with a pitch, knocking out at least two teeth. In the bizarre sequence that followed, Carbone came out to argue the call saying Bauer had swung. Then a large group of players, managers and umpires gathered around home plate and searched the dirt for Bauer’s missing teeth.
“I have not seen that before,” second baseman Bryan Barnes said. “That is awful. I wasn’t sure what they were looking for at the plate, and then the guy on second base came back out and said he lost a couple teeth.”
The Bobcats started the game off well offensively. By the fifth inning, they had gone up 5-1. With Barnes on third, first basemen Taylor Emody hit a chopper at the pitcher. Running on the outside of the base path, Barnes dashed home and collided with the catcher, who had just received the flip from the pitcher.
Barnes was called out, but Xavier’s manager vehemently argued that Barnes should have been ejected for running into the catcher. By rule, if a runner doesn’t slide into home, he should be kicked out.
“What happened is (the catcher) was going for the ball,” Carbone said. “Bryan’s trying to get around him, and this umpire saw that it was not malicious.”
Barnes was not ejected, and Dan Ward hit Emody home with a triple in the next at-bat.
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