Red Devils Fall in Weather-Shortened Game

baseball coach Matt Gershon will just have to be content with knowing that his team had the fortitude necessary to mount a furious rally against Grady.

Even if it never counted officially.

The record books will show that the Red Devils succumbed to the host Knights, 7-3, in Friday evening’s weather-shortened Region 5-AAA date at Crim High. But the record books don’t always tell the whole story.

Trailing 7-3 going into the top of the fifth inning, Druid Hills (8-10-1, 5-4-1 5-AAA) stormed back into contention, tagging Knights starter Mendez Elder for four runs to even the score at 7-apiece before lighting forced the game’s conclusion.

Druid Hills appeared poised to add even more to its total off a visibly tiring Elder as it had two runners on base with just one out when lightning first appeared to force a 30-minute delay. Additional lightning strikes and the subsequent onset of the evening’s rains left umpires no choice but to call the game.

Per Georgia High School League rules dealing with weather-abbreviated games, the final score is officially considered to be whatever the score was at the last fully completed inning.

Gershon called the outcome “extremely frustrating.”

“You can’t feel any other way,” he said, “It goes down as a loss for us, but I’m proud of the way the kids came back. You can’t control the weather.”

The Red Devils trailed 1-0 before Deric Boone and D.J. Stokes each rapped RBI doubles to fuel a three-run third inning.

Grady (11-6, 5-5 5-AAA) took advantage of several Druid Hill mistakes to answer with four decisive runs of its own the following at-bat. Two costly Red Devils errors in that frame helped the Knights account for all of their third-inning scores after registering two outs.

The hosts added two more runs in the bottom of the fourth to extend their lead to 7-3.

Elder struggled with his control from the mound all afternoon, totaling more than twice as many walks (5) than hits allowed (2) over the game’s four official innings to make things difficult for himself. Yet the hard-throwing junior right-hander helped his own cause at the plate, going 3-for-3 with two RBIs to pace the winners.

“He battled,” Grady coach Mark Davidson said, “and gave me what I needed.”

Teammate Damian Swann added a pair of doubles, a walk and a stolen base for the Knights.

Assuming the weather cooperates, the Red Devils hope to return to action today at Booker T. Washington.

Grady is idle until playing at Arabian Mountain on Monday.