By Laura Amato
It was an honest mistake.
That didn’t mean that Steve Adams felt any better about it.
The Holy Cross baseball coach walked off the diamond at College Point Fields Tuesday afternoon far earlier than he expected after a scheduling miscue forced the Knights’ league matchup against Xaverian to be halted after three innings.
The Clippers held a 7-6 lead when umpires called the game.
“It was a screw-up, the scheduling screw-up was on our end,” Adams said. “The Little League works well with us and it was a mistake of ours. We didn’t have it on the schedule and it was a mistake on our end. So we had to give them the field. It’s unfortunate, but we had to do it.”
The mishap was just another bump in the road of a spring season that has been chock-full of them. Nothing has come easy to any of the teams in the league — battling weather and delays as much as each other — but this latest issue was a bit of a surprise for both sides.
“Little League had the [field] permit, but according to [Adams], today was supposed to be cleared,” Xaverian coach Frank Del George said. “On the Holy Cross schedule, it’s clear. But [the Little League coach] showed him the schedule and it was right there. So we had to get off. It’s crazy.”
Of course, both teams were disappointed that they couldn’t finish the game, if only because both teams seemed to have found their early-game stride.
Holy Cross got out to a quick start, plating two runs in the bottom of the first, but Xaverian answered quickly, hitting through the lineup and racking up seven runs in the Clippers’ ensuing at-bat.
It was enough to chase Knights starter Patrick Morrissey after 1 2/3 innings, but Holy Cross never lost its focus.
The squad kept Xaverian off the board in the third and found its collective swing in the bottom of the frame, notching its own offensive explosion with four runs to make it a 7-6 game.
“It’s important to have a bit of momentum and being energetic and being down, but still staying in the game,” Adams said. “That’s where we can take advantage of those situations. If they were dead in the dugout, it might be different. We really feed off that a little bit.”
It wasn’t the first time Holy Cross has come back against Xaverian this season – or even in the last week. The Knights clawed out of an early-game hole on Monday as well, bouncing back to take down the Clippers 7-5 on the road.
But this game wasn’t quite as simple as just finding a late-game lift. This game, which both teams hope to reschedule sooner rather than later, is a brand-new type of test for the Knights as the squad look to grab a bit of momentum heading into the final stretch of the regular season.
It hasn’t been an easy spring, but Holy Cross is hopeful there can at least be an easy finish – especially when it comes to this game.
“They fight, they’re tough,” Adams said of his squad. “Are we the best team in the league? No, but we give it all we’ve got every time we’re out.”
