A walk off balk brings a win

By Michael Brooks

Staff Writer

Industrial fans celebrated and Palacios fans sat in shocked silence as Cobra Derrick Cann crossed home plate after the Shark pitcher balked in the game-winning run. For those who don’t know: a balk is a dead ball foul (an illegal play) that allows all base runers to advance one base.

The balk concluded a 10-inning pitcher’s duel filled with strike outs. In the end, the Cobras walked away with a 2-1 victory. 

Cobra starting pitcher Daniel Gonzales set the tone early in the game, setting down the Sharks in order, to begin the game. Gonzales would end up pitching six full innings, striking out 12, and allowing only two hits.

Sophomore Kolby Wilson, the starting pitcher for Palacios, was overpowering as well, going seven full innings and striking out 13, but he did allow one run to score.

After not being able to do much through the first five and a half innings, the Cobras finally broke through in the bottom of the fifth. Jack Hamm worked a walk, but after two consecutive strike outs, it looked like the inning was once again going nowhere until Lane Grymes came up with an RBI double in the right-center field gap.

“We had a runner on first and we needed to back up our pitcher by scoring some runs, so I was trying to shoot the gap,” Grymes said. “I shot the gap and got a double out of it and drove in the run.”

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