When Griffin Bruns realized that no one from Marion Local High School was covering the plate, the centerfielder decided to fix everything himself — and ended up recording a rare 8-unassisted out — Friday in an Ohio baseball game.
With Marion trailing in the top of the sixth inning, Fort Recovery High School’s Caden Grisez lifted a bloop single in between Marion’s two middle infielders and Bruns.
Grisez started by taking second base with both of the other infielders pulled into the outfield.
Then, when he realized that no one was covering third with the third baseman jogging to cover second, Grisez rounded the bag and kept running.
His Fort Recovery third-base coach initially motioned for him to stop, but with the catcher jogging toward third, home plate was open — and Grisez started running again.
He almost scored, too, but Bruns had started bolting toward the plate by that point, and he tagged Grisez — diving toward him and landing on top of him afterward — to keep Marion’s deficit at eight runs in their eventual 11-3 loss in the District IV final.
“Look at this, we got nobody covering second base,” one of the broadcasters said as the play unfolded.
“And nobody’s covering third, either, and he gets all the way to third,” the other member of the crew added. “There’s nobody at the plate.”
And after Bruns tagged Grisez, the first broadcaster said that “I have never seen that in high school. … Unbelievable.”
Grisez reacted to the play in a reply on X after the Fort Recovery win, writing, “How about that runners IQ.”
He went 3-for-4, drove in two runs and scored another, and Grisez struck out seven Marion hitters across 5 ⅓ innings.
Fort Recovery, the No. 6 seed in the Northwest 3 bracket, eliminated the No. 11 seed, No. 2 seed and No. 9 before toppling Marion Local — the No. 3 seed — in the District IV championship game, and it’ll next play in the regional semifinal May 30.
But it was the highlight from Bruns, with his lengthy sprint in from the outfield to salvage Marion’s botched defensive sequence and the desperation dive to make the tag, that’ll keep getting replayed in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s game.