When Griffin Brands noticed that no Marion High School players were covering home plate, he decided to fix it himself, recording a rare eight unassisted outs in an Ohio State baseball game on Friday.
With Marion trailing in the top of the sixth, Fort Recovery High School’s Kayden Grisez hit a fly single that went between Marion’s two center fielders and Brands.
Grisez started at second base, with the other two infielders dropping to the outfield.
Then, as the third baseman was running to cover second base, Grisez noticed that there was no one covering third base and continued running around the bases.
Fort Recovery’s third base coach initially signaled Grisez to stop, but with the catcher running toward third base, home plate was open and Grisez started running again.
He nearly scored as well, but by that point Bruns had started running toward home plate, tagged Grisey out, dove toward him and then landed on top of him to limit Marion to eight points and ultimately lose 11-3 in the District IV final.
“Look at this, there’s nobody playing second base,” one of the announcers said. As the play progresses.
“There’s nobody covering third base and he just flew all the way to third base,” added another player on the team. “There’s nobody at bat.”
And after Brun touched Grisey, the first play-by-play announcer said, “I’ve never seen anything like that in high school. … Unbelievable.”
Grisé X’s reply reacted to this play “I wonder what the runner’s IQ is,” I wrote after the Fort Recovery win.
he 3 hits in 4 at batshad two RBI and scored another run, and Grisez struck out seven Marion batters in 5 1/3 innings.
Fort Recovery, the No. 6 seed in Northwest District 3, defeated No. 11, No. 2 and No. 9 seeds before beating No. 3 seed Marion Local in the District 4 final and will next play May 30 in the regional semifinals.
But the highlight that will likely be replayed on repeat immediately after Friday’s game was Bruns’ long run from the outfield to save a Marion fielding fumble and then his desperate dive to make the tag.
