Hopes to continue suspended game dashed after COVID-19 outbreak

By: George Stifel
Staff Writer

On Thursday, Feb. 27 the UMW baseball team began a tense game against the Marymount Saints, and technically the game did not end until March 13 when the university officially announced the cancellation of all athletic activities for the remainder of the spring season.

It started off slow. Marymount scored the first run of the game in the fourth inning when a walk from David Kurzrock led to the player on third base, Casey Baker, walking leisurely to the home plate.
After that inning, the Eagles came back with vengeance, scoring three runs in the fifth inning. Garrett Lyons hit a double out to center field adding another tick to his RBI’s this season only to steal third off a wild pitch and then score himself at the next at-bat. The Eagles only further extended their league with two more runs in the sixth inning. At this point, the game seemed to be fairly one-sided. However, Marymount held on and began crawling their way back up starting with a run in the seventh. In the eighth inning, Mike Ferrara managed to hit a triple deep into the left-field resulting in two RBI’s in a single hit. At the top of the ninth, Marymount capped off that amazing play by tying it up with one last run.

The tension was palpable. Mary Washington switched over to offense for the ninth, they played hard but the Marymount Saints were holding fast. The Eagles only managed to get one person on base before their third out that inning and the game proceeded into overtime.

Mary Washington came back on the defense hard. They had a clean sweep and didn’t even let the Saints touch a plate before their half of the inning was over. Now came the offense, the game had slowed to a halt. Every single player knew that one mistake would cost the game at this point. Inch by inch, whether runs or wild pitches the Eagles snuck their way onto third base. Two more outs soon followed, and the game finished its tenth inning.

As the tenth inning drew to a close, fans noticed it had grown quite dark. The baseball field the Eagles play on does not have the multi-million dollar lighting systems that major league baseball stadiums have. Therefore it was starting to get to the point where the players couldn’t see, and there was no way to mitigate it. After a few minutes of deliberation, an official called out on the field that the game was going to need to be suspended

The game was set to be resumed on March 20 at 1 p.m. when the team visited Marymount. Fans and family walked home disappointed at the cliffhanger ending but excited to see the thrilling conclusion. Unfortunately, at that same moment, a global pandemic was starting to make its way across the U.S., and as of March 13, all athletic events for the remainder of the spring season were canceled. This, unfortunately, means that the three-week suspension has turned into a permanent one, making this an extremely rare case in the game of baseball where the official ruling on who won the match is that it is a tie.