PALMETTO — As bunts go, it wasn’t a great one.
Telegraphed so early that the third baseman was practically in the catcher’s lap by the time the bat made contact, bounced so hard off the infield turf that the ball was easily fielded on one, high hop, Cara Pogan’s attempt to squeeze home a run could have been just another out in Friday night’s Class 4A-District 10 championship game.
Tell the truth, the Braden River senior didn’t even want to bunt in the first place, not with the bases loaded and her team locked in a 1-1 duel with Sebring in the third inning.
“I wanted to hit away, but I had to do what was best for the team, and that’s the signal they gave me,” Pogan said. “I put it down and just focused on getting to first base as fast as I could.”
A funny thing happened on the way to first base, which turned into a trip to second base, and then to third, as Pogan’s bunt scored three runs, proving to be the big hit as the Pirates earned a 6-1 victory and their second consecutive district championship win over Sebring.
Braden River (21-5) will host Bartow at 7 p.m. Tuesday, which could be deja vu all over again for the Pirates, who went from last season’s district title over Sebring to a first-round, 1-0 loss to Bartow at home.
So in a way, maybe the Pirates were destined to get here, the program’s first four-year class of players represented by Pogan and three other seniors — Katie Gardner, Taylor Paulsen and Samantha Volker — who filled prominent roles for a squad that won all 14 of its district contests this season.
“I emphasized that a lot,” Braden River coach Doug Powell said of the Pirates’ first collection of four-year seniors. “All four of them have done their share, everything we asked them to do. This is just something I want them to remember.”
None of them, certainly, will forget Pogan’s third-inning bunt anytime soon. It came after three consecutive singles loaded the bases to start the frame, with Gardner at third, Paulsen at second and Lauren Powell at first.
It was the only time all game Pogan even made contact — she was hit by a pitch and struck out in her only other at-bats — and it didn’t look like the play of the game when it was fielded cleanly by Sebring third baseman Priscilla Adams, who only had to throw the ball about six feet to the plate to force out Gardner.
Somewhere between opportunity and execution, however, rests that uncertain territory where anything can happen, a void where nervous jitters can turn the routine into the inexplicable.
Which may be the only way to explain how Adams drilled the ball past the catcher and into the backstop (scoring Gardner), and how, backing up the play, Sebring pitcher Kayla Clemens squibbed a throw past the catcher, toward the Braden River dugout (scoring Paulsen), and, finally, how shortstop Dino Lower ended up with the ball and another throw that should have been routine, but instead went wide of the plate back toward the Sebring dugout (scoring Powell.)
Don’t ask Pogan. She didn’t see any of it.
“I was just focused on my coaches, waving me around,” she said. “I knew it had to be something good. In a game like this, every run counts.”
Doug Powell calls it his team’s “short game,” and said they practice bunting every session until his players are practically sick of squaring around. He’s never seen a bases-loaded clearing bunt at the high school level, but he didn’t seem that surprised to see it happen, either.
“That’s why you bunt,” he said. “You put pressure on a defense, things happen. Teams get rattled that aren’t used to it. That’s one of the weapons we like to use.”
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