No-hitter, no more: Tuscola baseball's stunning final inning comeback for County Clash win

Mountaineers go in front

Then, the Mountaineers went with a gutsy call.

With runners on the corners and one out, Shepherd made the call for sophomore Landry Webb to lay down the squeeze bunt.

"Landry Webb, even though he's a sophomore, he's one of those kids who controls his emotions great," Shepherd said. "I knew the moment wasn't too big for him. You give the squeeze to a lot of people in the seventh against their rival, they're shaking in their boots. But Landry is a mentally tough kid."

Webb put the bunt down, and junior August Fama sprinted in from third to give Tuscola the lead, barely beating the toss to the plate.

Tuscola wasn't content with the 3-2 lead, pushing one more run across the plate when Freeman came in to score on a wild pitch.

"We want to try to force the issue any chance we can, but you've got to have runners on to force the issue. We thought that was our chance," Shepherd said. "They always say at home, play for a tie, and on the road, play for a win."

That extra run ended up being the decider as Pisgah would score once in the bottom of the seventh to end the game at 4-3.

After a hit-by-pitch and a strikeout to start the home half of the inning, Harrell hit his pitch count, forcing Shepherd's hand in removing him from the game. Senior Sean Gilliland stepped in looking to save the game.

Pisgah scored its third run of the game when a walk from senior pitcher Sean Gilliland allowed Pisgah senior Jaxon Layman to come in to score.

That was followed by an error, a double and an intentional walk that loaded the bases.

But Gilliland buckled down, forcing a strikeout and a pop fly to end the game.

"The kid deserves it. He's a battler, he's a hard worker," Shepherd said of Gilliland.

As the pop fly was caught in front of the Tuscola dugout, players flooded out of the dugout as teammates came sprinting in from the outfield to celebrate.

"It's one of those things where emotions are building. They've been building since 7 p.m. on Tuesday, and they all just got let loose," Shepherd said.

Early success brewed late troubles

But for Pisgah, the end was emblematic of the team's troubles all night. The Bears were doing a great job of getting guys on the base path, but the hosts were struggling to get players across the plate.

Throughout the night, Pisgah stranded nine runners on base, including seven in scoring position.

"It hurt," Shepard said. "We needed them. We left the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh. But it wasn't from lack of trying. We didn't take pitches we probably should have taken. We didn't hit pitches we probably should have hit. But it's baseball."

Shepard said the problem with the approach to hitting started in the first inning when the Bears took the lead.

In that first frame, senior Braden Surrett grabbed a one-out single before senior Boone Carver crushed one over the left field wall to make it a 2-0 Pisgah lead.

"We made one mistake all night, and it made it 2-0," Shepherd said. "Tip your cap to Boone. We made a mistake, and he hit it."

It was the third-straight game with a Pisgah home run and the second-straight game that Carver had hit one out of the park.

But the Pisgah coach almost wished that home run had never happened.

"They all started thinking that they could all hit it out, and they went away from the approach that we had established and said that we were going to do," Shepard said. "We didn't return to that approach until the bottom of the seventh inning."

For the Bears, Shepard saw the loss as an opportunity late in the season to refocus his team ahead of the final couple of weeks of the season and playoffs.

"We're still growing, and we needed it," Shepard said.

For Tuscola, Shepherd is hoping the win launches the team towards another special run late in the season.

"When you get late in the baseball season, you want something to go exceptionally well, because then it kind of propels you to the end. It's a marathon, not a sprint," Shepherd said.