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Greg Rom

Ms. Wilson

English Honors II

4 October 2019

Conference Championship Game

I’ve been playing baseball for 11 years. 11 years of workouts, practices, games, and

tournaments. Playing from t-ball and coach pitch to showcase and high school ball. I’ve played a

lot of baseball, but there is one event that stands out to me the most and that is the Heritage vs.

Rolesville, conference championship game, of my 8th grade year at Heritage Middle School.

This game was supposed to be played earlier in the season, but it got postponed due to rain and

pushed back to the end of our season. And going into the game Heritage and Rolesville both had

a 7-2 record, which was good enough for both of us to be tied for first in our conference. The

abnormal part was that there were other games already scheduled for that evening. So we had to

play under the lights for the first time in the season, since most of the games started right after

school let out.

The last period finally came of the day that the game was scheduled. I had a couple of

teammates in my class. The game was on all of our minds and because of that we were hyping up

the game so much. And when 3:20 came around and the school bell rang for the final time that

day everyone rushed to the locker room. Which I don’t know why we were in a hurry to get our

jerseys on, because we had to kill 4 hours before the game was supposed to start. As my

teammates and I were getting changed, our coach popped his head in and told us “After y’all are

done, head to the cages”. So we got our bags and headed up towards the softball fields where the
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cages were. We didn’t usually take batting practice before the games but since we had so much

time to waste. We got up there and people we playing music, joking around, and talking. We had

to be reminded by our coach to get “mentally focused” several times. After BP we strolled back

to the school to eat and pass the time. After 2 slow hours, we finally got on the bus so we could

head to the field. We got to the field and the game was still going on. So after Rolesville was

done taking infield/outfield, we did the same thing.

The game before us wrapped up. So we went out on the field to start throwing and

warming up. Few minutes into warmups, we saw a kid named Kaden Varella look like he was

pitching for them. Now Kaden was the toughest pitcher in the conference, he topped at 87mph

and had a nasty slider. We faced him earlier in the season, but he threw wild and couldn’t hit his

spots. So this time we decided to heckle him a little bit in the pregame, by chanting “K..

VIBES.. 2.. 4..”, which was his Instagram username.

The game was finally able to start. It was pretty much shut down defense for the first 2

innings with no runs from both teams. But Rolseville eventually struck first in the bottom of the

3rd with a run, then we fired back in the next inning with an RBI single from me.

In the 5th inning the drama started up. Our coach had recorded Kaden throwing 102

pitches and the rule is a pitcher could only throw 95 pitches in a single game. The thing is

Rolesville’s coach only had 75 pitches recorded. The umpires hadn’t been keeping track of the

pitch count so they had no way for verifying the pitch count, so Kaden was able to keep playing.

Our coach was pretty irritated and was barking at Roseville’s coach from dugout to dugout.

Anyway Kaden was eligible to keep pitching, and he silenced all 3 batters in the top of the 5th.

Then in the bottom of the 5th Roseville’s catcher sent a ball over the left field fence to take a 2-1
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lead. And in our final attempt to answer we failed to score anything in the last inning, despite me

hitting a double backside to start the inning off. And the game was over.

Rolesville rushed the mound in celebration. And we our team started a verbal fight from

our dugout to some Rolesville players. The coaches met up there was some shoving, and arguing.

Both teams refused to shake hands and we left on the bus. But even though we lost, I’ve never

been in a game with more excitement and drama. So that is why this is my favorite baseball

game I have ever played, and made my love for the game even stronger!