A strange turn of events left the baseball team with their first tie of the season, with no opposing team, and in dark (literally) on February 19th at their home diamond of Crim High School.

The Knights were playing the Mays High School Raiders in a non-region game, and after seven innings, the game remained scoreless.

“Mays wasn’t getting any hits off of me, and we weren’t getting any hits off of their pitcher,” said senior and co-captain Liam Henry, who pitched the first seven innings. “It was just me and the pitcher back and forth back and forth.”

Senior, co-captain and third baseman Peter Mastin described the game as a “pitching duel.”

Normally, a high school game would end after seven innings no matter the outcome, but on that fateful day in mid-February, the Mays coach asked Grady head coach Mark Davidson to keep playing for a result.

Both teams and the umpires agreed to play until an inning ended with score, so senior Luke Leonard went to the mound to pitch and subsequently struck out Mays. Grady returned to bat, and loaded the bases. With two outs and the bases loaded, sophomore Davis Schwartz came up to bat. Mays changed pitchers, and the new pitcher threw several warm up pitches. After pitching one ball, the lights at the field went out, leaving both teams in the dark.

“I wasn’t very happy when the lights shut off because I was almost one hundred percent sure that we were going to win,” said Schwartz.

The coaches met and agreed to wait the estimated ten minutes for the lights to return. As the Grady team was waiting and trying to staying warm, the Mays team quietly snuck away. Mastin said he and all of his teammates heard their opponents leaving the field from the sound of their cleats on the concrete.

“It was obvious that they were scared,” team manager and senior Mallory Hazell said.

Grady’s team agrees that there was a high chance they would have scored off of the loaded bases and won the game. The game officially ended in a tie.