Sure, Batavia’s Ryan Boe is committed as a quarterback to play football at Northwestern, but the senior shortstop wasn’t ready for his high school baseball season to end just yet.
Heading into the seventh inning Tuesday, however, things looked pretty bleak for Boe. And if he made an out, he knew that his competitive baseball career would be coming to a close.
“Yeah, it was on my mind,” he said. “This could be my last at-bat, just take advantage.
“Luckily, I did.”
What happened next also defied explanation.
The Bulldogs were down two runs to the host Vikings in the Class 4A Geneva Regional semifinals. There two runners on and two outs, with two strikes already on Boe. But bedlam was on the way.
Boe hit what appeared to be an RBI single up the middle to cut the deficit in half.
“I was like once I hit it, ‘All right, that’s a single,’” he said.
Instead, the ball struck something and caromed over the center fielder’s head. As Boe slid into third base, the game suddenly tied, a relay throw went into Geneva’s dugout, scoring Boe.
Three outs later, 13th-seeded Batavia had pulled off an improbable upset with a 3-2 win over the fourth-seeded Vikings in advancing to Friday’s 4:30 p.m. regional championship game.
“I see the ball go over his head and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this could tie the game,’” Boe said. “Then I’m sliding into third and someone said, ‘The ball’s coming, the ball’s coming.’
“The ball flies in the dugout and I was like, ‘Let’s go.’ It was crazy.”
On a day when the wind was howling out, both starting pitchers stood their ground, but neither factored into the decision. Nate Nazos went five innings for Batavia (12-21). He struck out seven, allowing two runs on seven hits and a walk.
Seth Kisner was in command for Geneva (22-10-1). He worked 5 2/3 innings, allowing no runs on four hits. He struck out four and walked one. Kollin Mickelsen hit a solo homer and Roland Sorrentino had three hits.
Setting aside the fluky nature of the winning play, Batavia coach Alex Beckmann felt he had the right batter up at the plate with the game on the line.
“There’s no one else you want at the plate in a pressure situation, in either sport,” Beckmann said. “All those experiences definitely helped him. He’s calm, cool, collected at all times.
“Down to your final strike, put a good swing on the ball, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Boe has seen it all in both baseball and football at Batavia, so the moment never seems too big for him, regardless of the sport.
“It just kind of helps being through the high-pressure situations, knowing how to handle it,” Boe said. “I think all of those experiences helped me.”
Understandably, Geneva was stunned after the loss. The Vikings were a strike away from advancing, but lost to Batavia on their home field in the playoffs for the second straight season.
“It’s gut-wrenching,” Geneva coach Brad Wendell said. “There’s not much to say. It hurts really bad, and that’s OK. You invest a lot. I’m hurting too. These are great kids, first and foremost.
“I’m going to miss them tremendously. We were one out away. The ball didn’t bounce our way.”
Regardless of what happens the rest of the postseason, Boe has at least one more signature baseball memory to take with him to Northwestern.
“People were in disbelief,” Boe said. “I was in disbelief. I was like, ‘No way.’ The whole game, we were getting shut down. All of a sudden that last inning, all of us kind of got hot.
“It was kind of crazy.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
