FORT WALTON BEACH — Iced up and unabled to walk, separated from his teammates as Choctawhatchee’s trainer tended to his locked-up legs in the dugout, sophomore Jack Marracco wasn’t exactly the image of a hero who delivered Choctaw a 9-8 walkoff win over Escambia and the program’s first district title since 2016.
Yet, on the third hour and 44th minute of a back-and-forth battle where both teams traded off insurmountable odds through 10 innings, he was the hero Choctaw needed.
Minutes earlier, the younger Marracco dug into the batters box with his team trailing 8-6 in the bottom of the 10th inning with one out and the bases loaded. John Brown singled to deep left, Maddox Gentry laced a liner past shortstop and Blake Peters beat out a bunt to load the bases. As night nearly beckoned into morning, hundreds of spectators were brought to their feet, refusing to leave Andy Snaith Baseball Complex.
But we’d seen this scene before.
Three times before him, in equally opportune scenarios, Choctaw had a chance to walk it off. There was Seth Young nearly barrelling up a shot that died on the warning track in right in the seventh frame. There was the bases-loaded, no-outs setup in the eighth that resulted in a shallow flyout to center, a foul popup and a strikeout to keep the score knotted at 5. There was the bases-loaded, one-out situation in the ninth that resulted in an RBI force out from Jordan Figueroa, who beat out the double play to prolong the night.
But all that before him — the ebbs and flows of blown saves, clutch at-bats and exhausting all pitching options — didn’t matter as a hobbled Jack battled to a 3-2 count in the 10th inning with the winning run represented by Peters at first. In that moment, Jack didn’t try to be bigger than himself. Instead, he just tried to use the gaping hole in left with the outfield shifted toward the centerfield gaps.
“I wasn’t batting too good this game, so I just tried to get out of my head, just tried to put something backside, not thinking of pulling it anymore,” he said. “That wasn’t working, so I just tried to be patient and go with the pitch.”
The pitch was low and inside. Jack, a lefty, got inside of the ball and laced it to the opposite field, the spin tailing away from the left fielder. Leaving the box, you could see the pain in Jack’s legs as he struggled to hit any type of stride. Yet his teammates put their head down and never stopped running. Brown scored easily. Gentry followed standing up. Then came Peters, the relay hitting a cutoff man far too late as Peters slid head first into home plate for the winning run.
Past second base, Jack flexed. Of course he did. The young man leading the Big Green with a .457 batting average and 34 RBIs could only be identified by the pronouns of He/Him/Himothy.
“He’s a special player, a tough kid,” Choctaw skipper David Weber said. “He kept fighting it off, flipped one into left and delivered the game winner for us. The season was on the line, and he delivered for us.”
Gentry charged Jack first, others followed suit and the celebration ventured into center field, the dugout emptying as the black jerseys with Kelly green lettering blurred into one. Behind them, Big Green coaches slowed their trot toward the pitching mound as they readied for the obligatory handshakes that Choctaw had typically been on the wrong end of. Last year was one of those years, the Big Green losing 7-1 in the same round on Escambia’s field. But this was Choctaw’s time.
They swept Escambia 3-0. They didn’t lose a single game to a 4A team in Florida en route to their current mark of 22-5. They rose to No 1 in Region 1, assured of homefield advantage as far as they keep playing in regionals.
And they did it as a team.
Jack was the hero. But he had a helluva supporting cast, and that was no different Friday.
Down 3-0 in the fifth inning, it was Gentry who began the rally with a two-out double as part of a 3-for-5 night and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Peters then walked and took second as he caught Escambia napping, setting up a two-run single to center field off the bat of Carter Marracco. With the seal broken, Jack doubled to left to set the table for Young’s two-run single up the middle to give Choctaw a 4-3 lead.
“Even when we were down, the dugout was happy and remained postive the entire time,” Jack said. “We knew we were the best team so we just tried to remain calm and focused on coming back to win a district championship.”
It was Trevor Camden who overcame a three-run homer to Caleb Bates in the first to strike out a career-best 12 over six frames and give the Big Green a 5-4 lead headed into the seventh.
It was Figueroa and Isaiah Rohn who made that lead possible, the former leading off the sixth inning with a double and the latter driving him in.
It was also Gentry who navigated 2 1/3 innings of relief of Camden while allowing just one run despite pitching just a single frame all year. And it was relievers Parker Powell and Garrett Meggs, the latter who earned the win, missing barrells and keeping the ball in the infield.
Now Choctaw awaits the region draw and home-diamond advantage.
“Man, it’s awesome. We’ve earned the advantag to host. Now, we just need to take advantage of it and continue to play hard.”
This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Jack Marracco walks it off, Choctaw baseball wins District 1-4A title
Reporting by Seth Stringer, Northwest Florida Daily News / Northwest Florida Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
