Lexington County Blowfish play-by-play announcer Noah Adcock-Howeth summed up the team’s 11-10 walk-off win July 31 over the Florence Flamingos perfectly. 

 “You can’t pack that much chaos into one script and not have it rejected by every writer in Hollywood,” Adcock-Howeth said while still trying to process what he just witnessed.

The stakes were high. After winning the first of the scheduled seven-inning double headers 8-2, the Lexington County Blowfish lowered their magic number to win the West division of the Coastal Plain League down to two. A win in the night cap would lower it to one, meaning the team would only have to win one of its final three games or have the Asheboro Zookeepers lose only one of their final four to clinch the division crown.

The Blowfish ultimately got the win, giving them a chance to clinch the division Aug. 2. That night’s contest will again pit them against the Flamingos, but this time on the road in Florence. A win there could also end up being immaterial to their division hopes, as the Blowfish can also advance to the playoffs with an Asheboro Zookeepers loss on Tuesday, Aug. 1 in their home game against the Forest City Owls — or in any of their remaining games, all of which are on the road.

The Blowfish have two more games to potentially clinch the division after heading to Florence this week, both against the Macon Bacon, first on the road and then returning home to close out the season.

The division title would mean the Blowfish have punched their ticket into the playoffs for the first time since 2015 and just the second time since they moved from Columbia to Lexington County Baseball Stadium.

Things looked to be smooth sailing throughout the game except for the two-run first inning posted by the Flamingos. The Blowfish eventually chipped away with a Zach Cowart solo home-run along with an Ashby Vining grand slam to give the home team a 5-2 advantage.

After the opening inning, Blowfish utility man Landry Mead took over on the mound and, from innings two through six, didn’t surrender a single run. That was due in large part to left fielder Ty Jackson making an acrobatic catch over the short wall in left to rob the Flamingos of a two-run homer. It was a play eerily similar to the one that robbed a home run during the Coastal Plain League All-Star Game held at Lexington County Baseball Stadium July 19. 

 “The electricity of that play and the athleticism necessary to not just make the play, but stay at least a semblance of on the field of play to make it a legal catch and then the wherewithal to bring it back in with the throw to get the double play could only be done by Ty Jackson,” Adcock-Howeth said. 

 Blowfish coach KC Brown lobbied for the play to gain national recognition.

 “That was crazy,” Brown said. “At the All-Star Game, it was the craziest catch I’d ever seen and then for it to happen two weeks later is crazy. It’s Sportscenter’s No. 1 on the top ten, absolutely.”

 For Jackson, the play was somewhat of a blur ,but with the help of a teammate, he was able to gather himself and make the incredible catch.

 “I saw the ball hit a good piece,” Jackson recalled. “I didn’t think it was gone off the bat and then I kind of got close and I heard Warren [Holzemer] or Cowart on the left side of the infield say, ‘Warning track!’ and I was like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna jump and try to catch this ball.’ I caught it, kind of blacked out for a second, threw it in and they got the guy at first so you know, it’s a blessing.”

 As wild as that play was, it wouldn’t be one of the two or three wildest things to occur during the game. 

 After Jackson saved that pair of runs, the Blowfish were able to tack on a pair of insurance runs of their own to give them what seemed to be a cushy 7-2 lead going into the seventh and final inning. 

 After recording a quick first out, Mead surrendered his first run of the game with a home run from Riley Davis. A few miscues led to the Flamingos loading up the bases and after a stellar five innings of action, Mead had maxed out on his pitch count with the Blowfish only one out away from securing a win and getting to the brink of a division title. With the pitch count eliminating Mead from the game, Brown decided to warm up South Carolina freshman slugging phenom Ethan Petry to come in and pitch to record the third and final out. To that point, Petry hadn’t pitched in a live game setting since his high school days.

 “It was a mistake on my part,” Brown said after the game. “I mean, Ethan throws ‘pens and he was ready but what happened was, Landry ran into his pitch count limit and we had no one else to throw at all. And really, I was just planning for three quick pitches and we get out.”

 For a second, it seemed as if Brown’s presumptions were correct. Petry got the first batter he saw down to his final out, but after two straight pitches close to the strike zone that were called balls, the count was full. Petry plunked Flamingos designated hitter Kenny Jimenez to score a run and cut the lead to 7-4. Flamingo third baseman Dylan Robertson was also down to his final strike, but the very next pitch was launched into the outfield to score a pair of runs and bring Florence within a run of an epic, final inning comeback. 

 Carson Garner connected on a single to score the game-tying run before Petry finally recorded the third out. After trailing by five runs with only three available outs, the Flamingos erased the lead and were in perfect position to play spoiler.

 The Blowfish went down in order in the bottom of the seventh and sent the game into extra innings, when more chaos ensued. 

 To start the extra frame, Brown sent out relief pitcher Alex Lyon. However, there was one big issue: Lyon wasn’t on the team’s scorecard at the beginning of the game. Lyon is on the team’s active roster, but since his name wasn’t on the scorecard, he was ineligible to play. 

 The confusion resulted in Blowfish co-owner Bill Shanahan being summoned to the field to get on the phone with a representative from the Coastal Plain League to verify the initial ruling of Lyon’s ineligibility. After a short phone call made by Shanahan in front of Brown and the crew of umpires, it was determined that the ruling stood. Lyon went back to the dugout despite warming up for five minutes and Robbie Boykin entered the game to pitch.

 “Hats off for Landry for just going out there and wearing it, hats off to Ethan for coming into a terrible spot that obviously I put him in and hats off to these guys,” Brown said. “Hats off to Robbie Boykin for coming in after him and pitching in a tough spot again and there were no easy spots at all. Really, it was just survival of the fittest and really just no easy solutions.”

 Things would look even more bleak for the Blowfish as the Flamingos immediately scored a run from an RBI double in the top of the eighth followed by a costly infield error to score two runs on what would’ve been the third and final out. The Blowfish finally got out of the inning but not before the Flamingos took a 10-7 lead.

 The Blowfish dugout had a feeling of doom and frustration when the half inning ended. There was stomping, cursing and clear frustration from a team that seemed all too aware of the opportunity that was slipping out of their grasp. But one voice in the dugout kept things positive.

 Jackson, whose athletic robbery of a home run earlier in the game kept two runs off the scoreboard, was telling everyone to stay focused, that they were grown men and that the deficit wasn’t impossible to overcome. 

 It didn’t take long for the rest of the team to gain that belief back. Zander Buchan drove in the automatic runner from second base off a double and a Vining single moved Buchan to third. A Holzemer single scored Buchan and moved Xavier Cumbee to third, who pinch ran for Vining, making it a 10-9 game with only one out. Jackson, who also recently hit a walk-off home run against the Macon Bacon, stepped up to the plate with a chance to win it.

 “I hit a walk-off versus Macon, a home run, and me and KC were talking and he was like, ‘Should we bunt to get him in or swing?’ and he told me, ‘You can swing and I’m gonna sleep good at night no matter what,’ so I told him yessir and swung away and tried to not get too big and do whatever I could for my team and it was just truly a blessing,” Jackson said.

 Jackson stepped up and crushed a base hit into right field to score Cumbee and Holzemer and give the Blowfish an exciting, dramatic 11-10 win. 

 For Jackson, the positive attitude when things get tough was a staple of some of the championship teams he played on with the Savannah Bananas.

 “For the past two years, I played for the Bananas and we won it back to back years,” Jackson said. “KC had me come here to try to help change the environment and I feel we have the team to do that. We have the pitching, we have the hitting and we’re kind of coming together over this final stretch so you know, if we put it all together, we can make a great run and win it all.”

 When Jackson came to bat, Brown had all the confidence in the world that the Florida A&M product would pull through.

 “Yeah, 110%, absolutely,” Brown said. “I was confident that he was going to put the ball in play, didn’t feel like he was going to hit into a double play because of his speed and so, if you’re gonna go down, go down with the bat in your hand and go down with your best guys at the plate. I’m sure the whole dugout was feeling confident when he stepped to the plate, I was feeling confident when he stepped to the plate and I’m glad he was feeling confident.”

 Petry confirmed that the dugout not only rallied around Jackson’s contagious optimism, but knew that he was going to deliver them a win during that at-bat. 

 “Ty’s an amazing kid that’s one of my good friends I’ve met and made a great relationship with,” Petry said. “Shout out to him because he’s a great kid and I think he’ll make it far one day no matter what he does … he doesn’t back down because he’s a great kid. He’s always energetic and FAMU is lucky to have him.”

 According to Adcock-Howeth, this win is just the perfect encapsulation of the type of team they have built.

  “Everybody believes they always have a shot. It seems like, even when you’re looking at them from afar, that there is just an understanding and it’s always a new guy that’s picking it up,” he said. “Ty Jackson is always at the forefront, Beau Ross is always making noise but it’s the smaller contributors that fly under the radar. Even if they’re not doing it as vocally, you saw with Buchan who was struggling all these last few weeks but hitting hard balls left and right at people, he barrels one up and he puts them on the board, gets back a run and they go from there. It’s leading by example and it’s KC at the top but it’s belief that no matter what decisions are made and what they think they need to overcome, there’s always somebody who is going to step up.”