Gray Williams, Ethan Evans and Joe Quinlan stood out in the left field grass staring out towards the scoreboard taking in their final moments together with East Hamilton’s baseball team.
The Hurricanes season came to a heartbreaking finish as a terrific pitching performance ended with a 3-1 home defeat in Monday’s Region 3-AAA semifinals against South Doyle.
Williams was sensational in relief with 13 strikeouts over eight innings as the right hander looked untouchable the first seven innings before a chopper up the middle bounced just out of the reach of a drawn-in infield to plate two runs in the final frame. Both runs were unearned for the East Hamilton ace who struck out 80 batters over 43 innings this season and carried a 0.65 earned run average with only four earned runs allowed.
“There were times during the season I thought it would have been best to sit out and recover from a torn hamstring, but that feeling never lasted long because I wanted to be out there,” said Williams, who initially tore his hamstring on March 12 but continued battling to finish out the season.
“I spent most every day after school before practice with our trainer and I would go home and do everything I could to make sure I could keep playing. I just love baseball so much and it’s why I kept going. I want to go to college and pitch too. There’s nothing better than playing this game.”