All it took was a 90-second stretch for things to unravel for the Wylie baseball team at home against Wichita Falls Memorial in a crucial District 4-5A matchup on Friday night.
With Carter Hoffman facing a 2-2 count with two outs in the top of the seventh of a 4-4 game, the Memorial senior appeared to swing at an offering from Wylie pitcher Gehrig Fletcher — an effort that had Fletcher walking off the mound and Memorial coach Rob Johnson walking down the third base path towards his own dugout.
In a wild turn of events, Hoffman was ruled to have not offered at the pitch, with an appeal of the checked swing being unheralded to extend the frame. Two pitches later, Hoffman hit an inside-the-park home run when Wylie center fielder Blaze Ruffin appeared to lose his footing while trying to stop a hard charge at cutting the ball off, and the three-pitch sequence allowed the Mavericks to escape with a 5-4 win on Friday night.
