Today's bizarre high school football score

The thread on high school football's future reminded me that I didn't relate a story from two weeks ago.

My old high school was playing one of the state's signature programs, Harrisburg's Bishop McDevitt, in the district semifinals. McDevitt's not its usual self, though. Some transfers out of school, D-I quarterback goes out for the year in Week 9 with an ACL.

My school holds its own throughout, thanks almost entirely to a first-year junior quarterback coming into his own and a senior wideout who has probably lifted himself into some FCS offers in the past month. (The kid reacts to the ball in the air as well as any HS receiver I've seen since Troy Drayton.)

But McD goes to triple-covering the star WR in the fourth quarter, Shippensburg loses the ball on downs late, and McD's feature back busts out on a 35-yard TD run with 1:50 left for a 28-14 lead. I head out of the stadium and to my car.

As I was driving through the far end of town, our No. 2 wideout catches a TD pass with 35 seconds left. 28-21. And the radio station (a really low-signal station) goes out. I pull out my cellphone and get the online broadcast.

Of course, Shippensburg recovers the onside kick, and the same pair go over the top for a 40-yard TD pass with 15 seconds left. 28-27. McDevitt jumps offside on the PAT kick ... and my cellphone dies. I have nothing.

I drive the 40 miles home from there. Upon arriving, I grab my IPad and find Shippensburg decided to go for the two-point conversion after that. Their D-I wrestler, who's also a pretty tough LB/FB, pushed it in for a 29-28 win, easily the biggest in its history. Half of me was jumping up and down. The other side was kicking myself in the ass.

BTW, if that McDevitt running back falls to the ground at the 1 instead of scoring the touchdown -- and I don't blame him at all -- McDevitt would have kneeled it out and headed for home with a 28-14 win. Shippensburg had no timeouts left.

I took some serious heat from my friends in the next few days.

Shippensburg lost 37-13 to Berks Catholic last Friday in the district final at Hersheypark Stadium. I did not leave until the final gun.

 

Got two bizarre scores from the softball/baseball world this week. Well, one bizarre score and one statistical oddity.

Covered a baseball game Monday night that wound up 16-1 in four innings. The team that scored the one did it without putting a ball in play.
The winning pitcher struck out 11 batters, hit two and walked one. He hit one and walked one to start the third inning, then got a strikeout where the catcher dropped strike three. The runners tried to move up and the catcher made a bad throw to third. Ball goes down the left field line, runner scores to spoil the shutout.
Couple of pitches later, the catcher picks the runner off second with a snap throw.
The closest the losing team came to putting a ball in play was a bunt in the second inning. They had their other runner on first, and the pitcher balked on the pitch where the batter dropped down a bunt that landed fair. Play is dead, so no pitch, and the batter wound up striking out.
I think I've only heard of that one other time. We had a guy throw a five-inning perfect game once with 15 strikeouts. Not to even hit a pop up or a weak grounder is bizarre.

The other one was a softball call-in that wound up 29-23. The same two teams played an 18-14 game a few weeks ago.
The losing team's pitchers walked 27 batters, hit seven, and threw a dozen wild pitches. They scored 10 runs in the bottom of the sixth to go up 20-19, and then gave up 10 -- on only one hit -- in the top of the seventh.
Even weirder was there was actually one inning where neither team scored.

I had to sit through the baseball game, which was two hours of awfulness. I guess it could've been worse, though. The coach calling in the softball score said that game lasted about four hours.

 

Minnesota playoffs. Team trailed 27-10 with minute left. Won 29-27. There's a video in this link that shows two of the scores but misses first onside kick.

59 seconds, 3 touchdowns: Maple Grove rallies from 17 points down to win playoff game

Gamer:
Three TDs in a minute to win it: Maple Grove stuns St. Michael-Albertville

 

Here's the video from Maxpreps.
Watch Video "Team scores 19 points in final 59 seconds to win"

 

A team in Arkansas won their first-round playoff game 36-35 last night by recording two safeties in the final 4:00.

 

Tonight in Kansas: Pleasant Ridge 37, Atchison 29. Oh, wait. This is a varsity softball score.

They've decided to play the second game on another date.

 

Is that slow-pitch?

 

We have a softball team in our area that is, well, struggling. Lost the season opener 63-0 (neither team reported the stats for that one, thank god). Team is getting better, though: Lost second game only 30-0 and third game 27-0. Really battled in game four after going down 24-0 to make it a 24-8 final. It can't get any worse; same team had eight four-year starters last season and went 0-23.

 

Has anyone suggested Science Club?

 

Pleasanton (Kan.) 39, St. Paul 26. Pleasanton breaks the state softball record for runs scored in a game less than a week after Pleasant Ridge set it.

 

Having to watch a softball game featuring 27 walks by a single team is supposed to be banned by the Eighth Amendment. Even if everybody in town was guilty of a felony and the sentencing judge wanted to administer justice in a wide swath in one evening, making people watch that would have to constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

 

But wait! There's more!
That one was from last season. Saw one from last week that didn't involve our local teams, but did involve one in their district.

Final score: 28-25
Combined number of free passes issued: 55 (36 walks, 19 hit batters)
Total number of pitches: 482
Total number of strikes: 204
Total number of strikeouts (out of 40 combined outs): 21
Total number of errors: 7
Half-innings in which neither team scored: 1 (the top of the seventh; the winning team scored eight in the bottom half, including a three-run, walk-off, inside-the-park home run)