CHATHAM, Mass. — Dennis Cook had been waiting over a week for Ace Reese to have his moment. He just never envisioned it’d be to clinch a painfully anticlimactic result.

With two outs and the Anglers down three runs to Harwich in the top of the 10th inning, Reese (Mississippi State) clobbered a game-tying homer to dead center field. The highly-touted SEC product helped erase a four-run deficit in Tuesday’s extra inning with his first-ever tater in Chatham. Reese experienced a moment many dream of achieving, as he trotted around the bases to the chorus of a frenzied Veterans Field faithful — who’d just witnessed a spectacular, mind-bending comeback effort.

Problem is, the moment occurred after the Anglers showcased a horrific defensive display in the game’s final two innings. As ice-cold clutch as Reese’s towering blast was, the A’s weren’t deserving of a victory; not after chucking the ball away twice on one play and misplaying a bouncer in the outfield. The prolonged ballgame allowed Cook to finally see Chatham’s offense reach its potential. But, at what cost?

“Our lineup rolled over just right,” Cook said. “We just didn’t do the little things good.”

Errors by A’s pitcher Kaden Smith (TCU) and first baseman Chase Fralick (Auburn) amid a disastrous ninth-inning pickoff failure allowed the Mariners to plate a game-tying run — the start of a ludicrous final two frames Tuesday between Chatham (2-5-2, East) and Harwich (5-3-1, East) that culminated in a 7-7 tie.

Despite an offensive bonanza by the Mariners in the 10th, dropping four runs off four hits, the Anglers saved their best offense of the season for the bottom half. Chatham matched Harwich’s extra-inning run total via a Henry Ford (Tennessee) RBI single and Reese’s aforementioned three-run tank. The A’s extra-inning production was a reawakening of sorts for their offense, who in the nine frames prior had been continuing a lengthy cold streak at the plate.

If you ask Cook, though, that 10th inning never should’ve happened. He packed up his stuff and walked to his pickup truck with Chatham’s late-inning blunders running through his mind.

He knows the Anglers let a win slip from their grasp.

“You can’t be a spectator, you have to be moving,” Cook said, mulling over the errors. “The game is always moving. There’s always someplace to be in the game.”


Cook’s referencing a few players who were on the field in the ninth Tuesday. It started with Harwich center fielder Tre Broussard, who slapped a second-pitch fastball from Smith into the left-field grass for a one-out single. Broussard promptly gained a sizable lead off first base, goading Smith to pick him off. With Mariners right fielder Bristol Carter up to bat, Smith slid his left foot behind the rubber, turned and fired a throw toward Fralick.

The ball danced well wide of Fralick’s outstretched glove, as the first baseman initiated a mad dash toward the chain-link fence past Harwich’s dugout. When Broussard rounded second and charged for third, Fralick turned one error into two, hucking an ill-advised throw at third baseman Gavin Gallaher (North Carolina). It sailed right of Gallaher, leaving Broussard to freely glide home and knot the game at 3-3.

Lapses in fundamental baseball agitated Cook and his staff. Smith didn’t cover third base on Fralick’s throw. Reese didn’t charge in from left field for backup, either. Gallaher didn’t make a concerted effort at ensuring the ball stayed in front of him, merely offering a whiffed attempt at scooping the ball mid-hop.

“If we don’t let that ball get past third base, there’s no play at the plate,” Cook said. “We have to smother the ball. The pitcher’s job is to be backing that play up. And the left fielder’s gotta be backing that up. But the pitcher was standing on the mound, and the left fielder was standing in left field.”

Cook addressed the errors head-on in a postgame team meeting. When boneheaded miscues occur, there’s not much you can say other than never do that again. Cook hopes his team learned their lesson based on the beating they took in Harwich’s next set of at-bats.

A line drive to center field from Harwich first baseman Sam Harris capped off a four-run top of the 10th as the Mariners tattooed Smith. Two of the runs were unearned due to an error in left field by Reese, where a hopping ball in the outfield deflected off his glove. After entering the ninth with a save opportunity, Smith ultimately allowed five total runs.

His struggles slightly dulled the impact of A’s starter Kolten Smith (Georgia/transfer) and reliever Gabe Davis (Oklahoma State), who combined for eight innings of two-run ball — highlighted by seven Ks in four scoreless frames from Davis. Though Davis clocked a high pitch count (74 pitches), Cook regards it as one of the Anglers’ top mound performances this summer.

“(Davis’) pitch count got away from him … But he’s definitely got electric stuff,” Cook said of the 6-foot-9 reliever.

Even more electric was the Anglers’ improbable 10th-inning comeback. That plus the Anglers’ three-run sixth inning — featuring RBI singles from Daniel Jackson (Georgia), Ethan Mendoza (Texas) and Jackson Freeman (Northwestern) — made Tuesday arguably Chatham’s best offensive showing. It finished with a season-high 11 hits and tied its second-most runs in a game this season.

Patient, calculated at-bats without egregious chases and overzealous approaches was a refreshing sign for this Anglers’ offense. And it culminated in Reese’s game-tying homer.

“I feel like as the game went on, their at-bats got a lot better, more competitive,” Cook said, a rare statement for him this season. “They didn’t try to over-swing. They’re starting to come up with a little bit more of a plan, and I just hope that it continues to roll over into the next game.”

The A’s went from an all-out collapse to a result that yields overflowing positivity for their once-dormant offense. A tie is better than a loss, after all. And if someone needed a win, let it be the offense.

It’s still tough not to wonder what could’ve been if not for a few lackadaisical plays.