The Loop

There's nothing like winning your state championship on a triple play

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It doesn't matter what it is. Your wedding day. The birth of your first child. The moment you heard Deadwood was coming back. There can't be a single better feeling on god's beautiful green earth than winning your state softball championship on a triple play. Then again, don't take our word it. Just ask the lucky ladies of Michigan's Unionville-Sebewaing High, who clinched their D-4 state title this weekend on one of the rarest plays in sports. Who needs closers, amirite?

Can you imagine? One second you're standing on the mound with runners on first and second about to become the Girl Who Blew It bagging groceries at the local IGA for the rest of your days, and the next a comebacker ricochets off your arm, flies straight into the shortstop's glove, and one bang-bang later its ballgame, curtains, goodnight. I don't know how the good, hearty folks of the U.P. feel about tattoos, but if that were me, I'd be walking straight down to the local shop and getting 6-4-3 tattooed literally anywhere on my body. Seriously, dealer's choice.

Watching stuff like this (and this), it's hard to believe there's not some sort of fate involved—the glancing blow, the ball just narrowly missing the runner heading to third—but there is Major League precedent for the walk-off triple play, with the Phillies' Eric Bruntlett turning an unassisted triple on, you guessed it, the New York Mets back in 2009:

As for Kalamazoo Christian, who ended up on the wrong side of this wild coin flip, well, if there's no better feeling than winning your state championship on a triple play, then there's no worse feeling than losing on one:

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