It was a Friday afternoon to remember at Gregori High School, and not for the right reasons in the eyes of those in the visiting Turlock dugout.

For about 20 minutes, it was thought that the Bulldogs had secured a 5-4 win in the first game of a doubleheader against the Jaguars, a game rescheduled due to Monday’s heavy rain. The win also would’ve secured a series victory for the Bulldogs, who won 9-8 at Mark de la Motte Field on Wednesday. But Friday’s celebration was quickly extinguished. 

As the defending Central California Athletic League champions rested and fueled up on pizza in between games, the umpiring crew called both teams back onto the field to replay part of the seventh inning. Turlock reluctantly re-played the end of the game, and lost 6-5 in 11 innings. The roller coaster of emotions and the disappointment of losing a game they felt they had already won boiled over into the second game, which they lost 6-2.

The decision to replay the end of the first game came after the Bulldogs scored the presumed winning run on a two-out, bases-loaded balk by pitcher Dominic Hernandez in the top of the seventh inning, a call that was argued by Gregori skipper James Davis. Davis was ejected during his complaint, but not before he motioned for his team to play the rest of the game under protest. The Jaguars were set down in the bottom half of the frame to “end” the game. But Davis’ pleas were heard, and his team didn’t take their second chance for granted.

The balk and the events that followed were waved off, and the teams were ordered to pick up where things left off when the situation occurred. The Bulldogs failed to score that time around, as did the Jaguars. Each team added a run in the eighth inning, and the game wasn’t settled until the 11th when Izaia Perez worked a bases-loaded, walk-off walk.

So, why the reversal?

The complaint from the Bulldogs was that Hernandez had balked before he went into his windup. Their bench called it out immediately, including head coach Mike Souza who was on the field as the third base coach. The umpires didn’t see it, and Hernandez went into motion. As he did, the bench continued to yell, and he claimed that he thought it was the umpires yelling balk and not Souza, which prompted him to stop. The umpires called the second balk, but reversed the decision nearly half an hour later.

Souza said he had not heard a thorough explanation about the need for a restart, which is why he played the remainder of the game under a formal protest of his own. He also said he is not familiar with anything in the section rulebook or bylaws that would have justified the reversal of the call and the restart.

“I’ve been coaching baseball for over 20-something years, and I’ve never, ever seen that happen,” Souza said.  I never got an explanation of the ruling... We looked online, we looked in the book. Nothing says anything about that at all, so that's why I protested… I didn't have an explanation, so I didn't want to not say anything, and it bites me.

“I gotta have a ruling. I gotta try to talk to someone.”

The reversal and the ensuing extra inning loss put a damper on an otherwise solid performance from senior pitcher Andrew Sevilla, who allowed four runs on five hits with five strikeouts over the first six innings. After an emotional celebration prior to the reversed call, he went back into the game for another inning before sophomore Mason Hackler took over for the remainder of the contest. 

“I didn’t hesitate at all,” Sevilla said. “I went to every coach and told them, ‘I'm going back out there. I'm finishing this game. I don't care.’ I told them that, and that's just who I am. I want to compete. I know I can get these guys out. So I was super psyched, hyped to get back out there even though we didn’t feel like we should’ve still been playing, and it just didn’t go our way. We just had some hiccups there.”

The Jaguars scored the first two runs of the game against Sevilla in the third inning off an RBI single and a fielding error, but the Bulldogs knotted things up the next half inning when a Jaron Rocha single scored a pair. They took a 4-2 lead in the fourth when Rocha scored on a passed ball and Chris Allerton roped an RBI single. It was tied again after a two-run fifth from the Gregori offense. After the chaos surrounding the balk, Brady Faria gave the Bulldogs a 5-4 lead with a two-out single with runners on second and third. Avyn Redoble responded for Gregori with an RBI single to extend the game further into extras.

Following the nearly five-hour marathon, the Bulldog offense struggled to generate much offense in the second game, while defensive miscues added more fuel to the Jaguars’ momentum. Turlock’s two runs came on a single from Sevilla in the second inning, and it was just one of three total hits. The Jaguars only had five hits themselves, but capitalized on three errors in the next half inning to get five runs across.

“It was kind of emotionally draining for the guys,” said Souza. “The emotions after you end and win a game, then you have to restart a game, another game waiting next, it was a lot on the kids. Emotions are high, emotions are low. (It’s) kind of frustrating after you get a victory then get it called back.”

The Bulldogs, now 1-2 against conference opponents and 3-5-1 overall, will have a quick turnaround, traveling to Stockton today for an 11 a.m. first pitch against Lincoln, who they were supposed to play a week ago before heavy rain had other plans. They, as well as the rest of the CCAL, will have the remainder of the week off.

“I told them (in the huddle), ‘You gotta keep grinding, gotta keep fighting.’ That's all it is,” Souza said. “It's just things happening outside of our control. But we just gotta keep on battling. You know, it's just baseball. There are still a lot of games left. This is the first league week, so we gotta look past these two games and move on.”