[dadbuc]

This reply is written by head coach R. Weber, and assistant coaches R. Thomsen and Z. Buchan, coaches of Maple City Glen Lake the losing team in this game. In the division 3 regional championship game played in Rogers City, MI. Glen Lake was the visiting team, in the top of the tenth inning a base hit scored 2 runners making the score 5-3 in favor of Glen Lake. In the bottom of the inning the bases were loaded for Rudyard High School. The batter for Rudyard with 2 outs and a 2 ball 2 strike count hits a homerun to left center. The third base coach falls over in astonishment, and the team goes crazy jumping up and down forming a circle around home plate yelling and cheering. The runner from third base comes in to home plate almost doing a skip in excitement along with the other players jumping around home plate, and the Glen Lake assistant coach points out to other coaches that the runner from third base missed home plate. The runner from second crosses home plate, and the coach now on his feet runs across home plate also. The players now circle around home plate and begin congratulating the runner on first by slapping hands and making other contact in fair territory before the runner crosses home plate. The batter is mobbed just before he touches home plate, and proceeded through the pile to touch home plate. As coaches we can appreciate the excitement, but the runner on third missed home plate, and all other runners touched home plate with out the runner on third touching home plate, this should be the third out, game over. Coaches R. Weber and Z. Buchan both came out to appeal to the umpire about the runner from third base missing home plate. The home plate umpire heard the appeal and went to confer with the base umpire. The base umpire told the home plate umpire that the game was over, then the homeplate umpire looked at both coaches and told them that the game was over and they were leaving with out any explanation. In our opinion the most important time of this game was to make sure all runners touched home plate, and that we were never offered an explanation besides that the game was over. Our concern is a rule violation in the appeal process regarding a dead ball, and again no explanation was ever made to us whether the runner on third touched home plate or not. We don't think the runner on third touched the plate, and the umpire never let us know if he did or did not. We believe we appealed the play in proper order and deserved an explanation.