448 Game @ Servite (8) (2/2)

"No Sanchez. No Williamson." Noah straightened up. "Are you saying that we'll get another at-bat??"

Coach lifted an eyebrow. "We'll need hits for that to happen. We also need hits to score runs in order to win. Were you planning on not winning today?"

"No! Wait, yes!" Noah looked confused. "Um, I mean, I want to win!"

"That's the spirit." Coach nodded in satisfaction before walking away.

Noah gripped my arms, eyes shining. "It's going to happen! We're going to win! We're going to win league!"

I tried not to laugh at his childish expression. I forgot how important this was to Noah. This would be the only time he got to play a whole season with his brothers.

'Ding!'

All heads snapped towards the field, as all eyes tried tracking the well hit ball by Zeke. It went right between the center and left fielder, nailing the fence.

"Wow! Do you think he dented the fence with that line drive?" Noah asked in his excitement.

I didn't bother answering. My eyes were on the running Zeke. He rounded first and didn't hesitate to go to second. The ball came back to the infield, but Zeke was already standing proudly on second amidst the cheers of our few fans.

"Yes, Zeke! Way to go!" Noah hollered, making my ears ring.

Julian stepped up to bat next. The cheering was just dying down, yet Julian made connection on the very first pitch delivered to him, getting everyone to jump up. The hit got through the infield and Zeke was legging it. He rounded third base as the center fielder came in to get the ball and made a throw to his catcher. The throw was short, bouncing before it could reach the catcher, and allowing Zeke to squeeze by without needing to slide.

Our smaller amount of fans got loud. It wasn't long before they started to chant the schools initials.

"W. H. S."

Zeke waved his hand towards them, looking up right at his parents before coming inside the dugout. The team assaulted him with claps and slaps on the back; Happy that he closed the gap by one.

Even I joined in...kind of. The best I could. I stood on the outer edges of the grouping, careful to not get sucked in.

"Alright, alright. Cool it guys." Zeke said helplessly. "We're still on the losing side. We can celebrate more when we steal this win back."

"Yea!" We chorused. Everyone backed up and gave him room.

As we got lost in the celebration, Mahki's at-bat had just started. He was struggling more than Zeke and Julian did, already cornered into a 1-2 count. He fouled off two more pitches, before actually putting the ball into play. It looked like a normal play for the shortstop, but when the ball took a weird hop and made it over his glove, going into the outfield grass. The shortstop scrambled for the ball, but by the time he turned around, the damage was done. Julian was on second and Mahki was on first.

"Does that count as a hit?" I asked Noah, my own personal baseball rule book.

Noah nodded. "If it had bounced off his glove, it would have been an error. Most scorekeepers would call that an infield hit, but sometimes there'll be an occasional jerk."

I hummed in agreement.

The team was ecstatic with three consecutive hits. Servite was not. Their coach came out before Jason got to step up to the plate. He signaled for another pitcher change, delaying the game for more than a few minutes.

It ended up working in their favor. No matter if it was the pitching that got better or the fact that the delay caused our momentum to tamper off, we failed to capitalize on the two baserunners and no outs. Jason hit into a double play and Alex struck out swinging. It was a quick turnaround.