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Anyway, here's what I did...
When the defense (mistakenly) believed there were 3 outs and ran off the field, I knew that by rule, there were only 2, because R3 was not out at third, my partner's call notwithstanding. So, upon seeing the batter-runner on second and knowing he could or might take off to third, I called "time" and killed everything so I could straighten this mess out.
I went to my partner after politely separating the two coaches from him and asked my partner, "Bob, whom did you call out and why? I just want to clarify this." He said R3. I told him that in this particular situation, because there was no force, R3 retained his right to third base and could not be called out if he was tagged while on the base and R2 was on it, too. Now, because R2 was tagged off a base during his rundown back to second, his out remains. However, what to do with R3?
Neither NCAA nor OBR have any provision for putting R3 back to third--he was not out, remember--and umpire fairness/or correction doesn't come into play here. Because R3 was never out and he legally advanced to home, he became a legally scored run, and a run legally scored in such situations cannot be "unscored." Therefore, I did not disallow his run by sending him back to third base. By rule, he legally scored, and this trumps any idea of correcting an umpire's call (which, BTW, is limited to a very few situations in NCAA/OBR). As a result of R2 being properly out but R3 not, there were only two outs. So, I waved the defense back onto the field and prepared to explain this all to the defensive team's head coach.
Surprisingly, he was rather calm about it--not screaming or ranting--and never did get ejected. However, he kept bringing up the "but you guys screwed up so you have to put that runner back onto third base" argument. I repeatedly but politely explained to him that by rule, I could not do that here and that by rule R3 scored. I think my partner was rather surprised by my wording, as I told Matt, the defensive head coach in question, that "we did indeed make a mistake." Never once did I refer to this as my partner's mistake, even though it was, and never once did I throw my partner under the bus, even though I wanted to. I referred to the screw-up as "we" but emphasized that my decision was final.
He asked me after the inning eventually ended if he could protest the game, but I had to explain to him that he was a bit too late for that. Then he said something that didn't exactly please me when he said, "You guys owe me, Randy. You're gonna have to give something back to me for that."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, Matt," was my succinct reply. That was the end of that.
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