DUNLAP, Tenn. -- Madison Burrows brought girls in the Grundy County dugout to their feet when she crushed a pitch over the left-field fence and drove in Emilee Meeks in the top of the first inning.
But Burrows did not score.
Once she returned to the dugout, the home-plate umpire declared that she did not touch the plate and that she was out.
"The explanation that I got was that she jumped over the plate," Grundy County coach Jason Evans said, "and she never touched it."
Even though it happened a couple minutes after the first pitch, and both teams had plenty of other opportunities and made mistakes over the course of seven innings, the missing run proved to be crucial. Sequatchie County rallied for a 6-5 District 7-AA victory over the Lady Yellow Jackets with a walk-off single.
"I think we hate losing more than we like to win," said Sequatchie coach Kelly Somerville, whose team trailed 5-1 before batting in the bottom of the third inning.
"This game is all we've been thinking about since we got out of bed this morning," she said. "We were in the hallway talking about this. It's been an all-day affair."
It had been an entire lifetime around softball before Somerville witnessed the call made in the top of the first inning. Her father was a high school coach. She also recalled running around recreation league fields as a 4-year-old. Never, she said, has she heard an umpire declare a home-run hitter out for not touching the plate.
It goes down as an RBI triple for Burrows.
"I was waiting for one of her teammates to touch her, so I was paying attention, and she jumped right over the plate and I was like, 'I can't believe that,'" Somerville said. "The ump saw it. He was watching."
With the mass of Lady Jackets around home plate, Evans never saw the mistake. He respectfully questioned the umpire, who gave his explanation.
"I've never seen that before, and I'm not sure I saw it this time," Evans said. "Any time we get together it's going to be interesting."
The Lady Jackets (10-3, 2-1) dropped a half-game behind the Lady Indians (5-6, 2-0) in the district standings. But they will meet again next Thursday.
The entertainment of that game will be hard to top after Thursday's encounter.
Even without the run on the over-the-fence shot, Grundy County scored three times in the top of the first inning. The Lady Indians trimmed the lead by one in the second inning on a single by Hannah Knight, who proved again later to be a clutch hitter.
Sierra Kilgore expanded the Lady Jackets' lead to 5-1 with a homer over the left-field fence. She jumped on home plate and stomped it with two feet before heading to the dugout.
The game wasn't over.
Sequatchie responded with three runs in the bottom of the third, which featured a Ryleigh Clemons double that came within inches of being a homer.
"That hit got everybody fired up," Somerville said. "We got to thinking, if they can score three in an inning, so can we."
Knight, a freshman hitting in the ninth hole of the lineup, delivered the winning hit. She rallied from an 0-2 count to smack a 2-2 pitch through the right side of the infield to plate Emily Yell.
"I had two strikes on me and I knew that Allyson (Davenport), our only senior, would kill me," Knight said. "Why? Because it's her birthday and we're not about to lose."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP.