Down 14-2 with two outs and nobody on base Monday, the Capital City Cavaliers were one out from losing by run-rule.
It would have been easy to just come back and fight another day.
But the Cavaliers scored five runs in the inning to keep the game going, eventually falling 16-8 to the St. James Tigers at Capital City High School.
"We showed some fight and you want to see that," Capital City coach Brett Skinner said. "But we don't want to put ourselves in those situations."
St. James scored four runs in the fourth and seven more in the fifth to extend its lead to 12. The first two Cavaliers in the bottom of the fifth struck out before Capital City showed a spark.
Noah Nicklas hit a bloop single to right and advanced to second when Colin Flaherty was hit by a pitch. Brett Kuebler then singled to score Nicklas to make it 14-3. Brock Miles followed with an infield single to load the bases to bring Taggert Bodenstab to the plate.
On the first pitch, Bodenstab lifted a grand slam over the fence down the line in left to make it 14-7 and extend the game.
"That was huge," Skinner said.
It was the first home run hit in the brief history of the Capital City program.
"That was a big one," Skinner said. "He's been struggling a little bit, so it was good to see that. Maybe that will give him some confidence and he won't press so much at the plate."
But that was one of few highlights on a day where the Cavaliers struggled on the mound and in the field.
"It's hard to win a baseball game when you can't do the little things," Skinner said.
Capital City pitchers combined to walk 13 St. James batters. In an 11-batter stretch in the fourth and fifth innings, four Cavaliers took the mound in an attempt to halt the bleeding.
"Efficiency wasn't there today from the arms," Skinner said.
Add in five Cavalier errors and it made for a tough day in the field.
"We have a long way to go, we know that," Skinner said. "But we're young, we're inexperienced and we need to buy in and trust the process, we're going to get better.
"But if we just go through the motions, it's going to be a long year."
Kuebler, Miles and Nicklas all had two hits in an eight-hit Capital City attack. Kuebler and Flaherty scored two runs each.
Bodenstab took the loss, pitching the first 31/3 innings.
St. James is now 1-4 on the season.
Capital City (0-3) will open Central Missouri Activities Conference play today against Jefferson City (6-1).
"It doesn't get any easier," Skinner said. "We'll see what happens, you never know."
The varsity game will start at 5:30 p.m. at Vivion Field.