BAKER — Austin Davis scored on a two-out wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning to cap a wild final frame and even wilder District 2-1A baseball game Thursday night as Baker School beat Freeport 9-8.
The Gators (6-8, 3-4) trailed 8-4 heading into their final at bat, but they refused to go away.
Logan Nixon led off the inning with double off of Bulldog reliever Noah Simmons. Nixon was pulled for pinch runner D.J. Thomas.
A single by Kyle Davis gave the Gators runners on the corners with nobody out. The rally continued as Alan Wiedenhammer drew a walk to load the bases.
The Gators traded on out for a run when Cameron Freeman grounded out to short to score Thomas.
With first base open and one out, Taylor Carlisle struck out, but when the ball got past the Freeport catcher Carlisle took first and Kyle Davis scored from third to pull Baker to within two as Wiedenhammer went to third.
Austin Davis walked and with two out Mason Lowery doubled to left to scoring Wiedenhammer and Carlisle and sending Austin Davis to third.
With the game tied 8-8, Freeport coach Shaun Arntz elected to intentionally walk Garrett Sanders to load the bases and bring Nixon back to the plate.
Before Nixon had a chance to try and deliver the winning hit Simmons threw the wild pitch allowing Austin Davis to score the game winning.
In the early going it was all Freeport (3-4, 2-3) as the Bulldogs took advantage of Baker mistakes to score five unearned runs.
The big blow of the game for the Bulldogs was a 2-run homer by Dakota Davis in the top of the third that pushed the Freeport lead to 2-0.
But a single by Austin Davis and a triple off the bat of Adam Crowson cut the Bulldog lead to 3-1 before Crowson scored on a wild pitch to pull the Gators to within a run at the end of three.
Freeport added a run in the fourth, three in the fifth and another run in the sixth.
Baker stayed within striking distance scoring two in the sixth inning to set up the madcap finish.
Jake Rainey picked up the win for the Gators working three innings and giving up one run.
Simmons took the loss for the Bulldogs.
Randy Dickson is the Crestview News Bulletin’s sports editor. Email him at randyd@crestviewbulletin.com, tweet him @BigRandle, or call 682-6524
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Gators take wild one from Freeport