MILLBURY, Ohio — A frightening collision in the outfield between two Eastwood baseball players led to the Eagles’ Northern Buckeye Conference game at Lake being called prior to completion on Thursday as both athletes were stretchered off the field.
Eastwood left fielder Brock Messinger and center fielder Brandon Falls were sprinting toward a flyball to deep left-center field from Lake’s Gavin Kohlhofer in the bottom of the seventh inning. Both outfielders appeared to dive for the ball and collided.
Medical personnel on site rushed to the two players, and immediately, a call to 911 was made. Within several minutes, multiple ambulances and emergency responders from Lake Township Fire Department and the City of Northwood Fire Department arrived.
After roughly 15 minutes, Messinger and Falls were stretchered off the field. Eastwood baseball coach Kevin Leady said both players had concussions, and one had a broken arm. He added that both were going to a trauma facility.
Leady and Lake coach Casey Witt agreed to call the game, which was tied at 4-4 with no outs in the bottom of the seventh after Kohlhofer rounded the bases for an inside-the-park home run.
“In that moment, I think there’s something more important than the outcome of the game, win or lose. My biggest thing is our deepest thoughts are with those two, sending tons of prayers,” Leady said. “Somehow, we have to regroup.
“Our guys are pretty shaken up from it. You don’t see it very often. When I spoke to Casey, Casey was great about it. There’s a ton of respect over there, and I said ‘Casey, I can’t finish this thing.’ After what I’ve seen, what our kids have seen. … It’s the ugliest side of sports. It’s something that can happen, it’s an unfortunate thing, and nothing anybody ever wants to happen.”
Eastwood’s players and coaches were visibly distraught during and after the incident. A crowd of roughly 150 people was silent throughout most of it as well.
Leady, who is in his 12th year leading Eastwood, said the message to his team when they huddled afterwards was to stick together.
“Nothing we obviously want to have happen, but we only have each other,” Leady said. “We’ve got to stick together even more than possible, and maybe make everything we do for them.”
Both coaches were grateful for the quick response from the medical personnel.
“We’re fortunate that a half mile from our school is the local police station and our emergency response crews are really good in the area,” Witt said. “They were here in a flash, and hopefully they can get those kids taken care of and hopefully they’re all right and it’s quick recoveries for them.”
Added Leady: “Extremely thankful for our law enforcement and the first responders. It was incredible, by the time I got out there and I said ‘call 911,’ I think I heard the sirens. I asked for multiple ambulances, and oh my goodness were they incredible. So extremely thankful for that.”
Prior to the collision, Eastwood and Lake were locked in a tightly-contested battle between two unbeaten state-ranked teams.
Lake (11-0, 3-0 NBC), which is ranked No. 6 in the latest Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Division III poll, took advantage of three Eastwood errors in the first inning to take a 3-0 lead. Jack Sobzack’s RBI single to right scored Jay Blazevich to give the Flyers a three-run lead.
Eastwood (10-0, 3-0), the top-ranked team in Division III, used a big fifth inning to take its first lead. Drew Kachmarik’s two-run single to left field scored Colton Woodward and Andrew Badenhop to tie the game at 3-3 with two outs, and two batters later, Connor Norton’s RBI single to left scored Xander Greulich to give Eastwood a 4-3 advantage.
The teams will look to finish the game at a later date.
First Published April 19, 2024, 12:52 a.m.
