By By Adam Robinson – sports editor
The other day I had a question asked to me about high school pitchers and their inning count and I thought that it would be a good column topic of choice for this week.
The question that was asked to me was how many innings can a pitcher throw in a game?
The final game of the Escambia County tournament helps explain this for example so lets look at the W.S. Neal Eagle and T.R. Miller Tiger game in the final game of the Escambia County tournament a couple of weeks ago.
William Shell pitched the complete game for the Eagles as he went nine innings and Derek Busby went seven innings and was taken out when the game went into the eighth inning.
According to the 2008 spring sports book by the AHSAA, a pitcher can only pitch a maximum of 14 innings per week. A week period is listed as Sunday through Saturday and that includes regular season games, tournament and playoff games.
A pitcher may pitch a maximum of seven innings in one day or over two consecutive days.
So were W.S. Neal and William Shell in the wrong?
Like all rules given, there is an exception to the inning rule.
According to the exception of the rule and I type word-for-word:
The rule goes on and on about if the game is suspended at the end of regulation and continued on the next day, but that does not fit our situation.
In our situation, the game is tied at 0-0 at the end of seven innings of play and neither pitcher has pitched in a game that week so both pitchers could have pitched into the eighth inning as long as they did not exceed the 10th inning.
The only thing effecting the two pitchers would be that they both would have needed two consecutive calendar days to rest before pitching again.
I hope this clears up any confusion about the rule and I thank the person who brought it up, because it fit both our area teams and pitchers.
If this rule happened to be broken by a coach and team, a result of forfeiture of the game and a fine of $250 would be applied.
Both our area teams will face off against each other in competition this week.
The first match we will have is on Thursday when our two softball teams tangle against each other.
The two teams will face off against each other at W.S. Neal beginning at 4 p.m.
Our second matchup will be in tennis. The Tigers and the Eagles will face each other at W.S. Neal at 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
Come out and support your favorite area team this week.
I want to wish all area teams the best of luck in their games this week and until Sunday when we meet again, God bless.