Was an extremely smart play by Hujsak, that was as smart a play as the pickoff was dumb!
Printable View
Our 2 family groups were sitting about 7 and 8 rows above the third base dugout and saw the play in real time. All five of us felt that both Cheese and Hujsak fell asleep at the wheel. Bone headed play by both. My wife says that the only job Cheese has coaching the third base.
Let me just say this, if a coach has to yell for you to get back or go, guess what? It's to late.
Always appreciate your insight and knowledge from your coaching days, but the opinion of our group had nothing to do with Cheese yelling for the player to head home or come back. We all felt both were totally unaware during this situation and both lost focus. My wife told me again that all Cheese has to do is coach 3rd base.
This would've been my instruction in between every pitch, "Nobody out, runner on first, Conservative lead, good secondary, dont get picked, tagging on a fly ball, line drives have to go through, ground ball to the middle we're scoring, to first or third we're holding unless they go for 2, your read on a passed ball." I don't what cheese instructions were but every third base coach has pretty much the same rap, depending on situation.
Once again it's all on Hujsak. NOBODY in the dugout is blaming cheese for this, no one. Watch the replay hujsak is down the line on ball 4 he starts back to third and then suddenly turns and heads for home and you can see cheese motioning and yelling, and that's what i mean by it was to late. This is all hujsak, sorry. And i'm sorry but you can never go by what a well meaning woman says during a baseball game. Just watch the replay you'll see what i mean.
And like I just said Hujsak started back toward the bag and the turned and started trotting home. At that point it's too late for the 3b coach to do anything. And he wasn't halfway when he got picked. Please watch the replay and you'll see. It's why Lemonis said in the postgame nobody feels worse about this than Connor(he did not mention cheese), and said he won't make that mistake again. I like you a lot but the only way cheese prevents this is by tackling him and he ain't fast enough. Trust me I've coached third for more than 2 decades this is all on the runner.
The replay of the game watch from 2:45:40 mark. Hujsak is almost completely back to third and then for some reason has a brain fart and turns around and trots for home. Notice as soon as he turns from the bag and starts trotting toward home look at cheese he's gesturing and hollering at Hujsak. Hujsak just gets past the dirt cutout(not halfway) when the throw comes. Cheese even run towards the line and the bag and is gesturing at the bay. No way anyone can watch that and say it's not on Hujsak.
Thanks for further explanation. Not only do you explain things from a coach's perspective as well as a fan, I appreciate your kind words which brought a smile to my face. True state fans want us to be our best possible in all sports. Our group and those around us as fans are prone to do and lost it after this play "among a few others". I don't think i've met a true state fan that I didn't like, it takes guts to be one. So glad my late superdawg dad raised me hardcore as I have my son. Heck, I would watch state play tiddlywinks, especially if it was against ole miss and want to win every play and game! Hail State!
Not only that- Cheese has to look into the dugout at Lemon to get the signal for what he wants to do next. Cheese sees Hugesak coming back toward 3rd as he was supposed to do. He probably cut his eyes toward the dugout to see what the plan was and then Hugesak inexplicably takes off
Man I love the way Hujsak plays the kid is all stones and it killed me that he made that mistake! You could see the hurt on his face too, because he knew he cost us a chance to have a huge inning. If we had lost that game somebody would've had to put a 24 hour watch on him.
Your wife knows what cheese told him!??? Figures. This ain't on cheese. I promise you cheese just told him what they were doing on a ground ball. Let it go through. Etc. you don't tell them let it go through on the bases loaded. And you don't down angle w no outs. So let's just admit this isn't cheese's fault. Like blaming the rb coach for us fumbling.