After honoring Montezuma-Cortez seniors Gabby Begay, Ahnna Higgins and Halee Pell for senior day at Englehart Field on Saturday, the Lady Panthers and Meeker Cowboys were ready to play ball.
Unfortunately, the umpires weren’t.
The two teams sat around patiently for a while, but after it was announced that the officials were still 45 minutes away, they grew restless.
They had already gone through their warmups. What now?
That’s when some of the M-CHS players snagged a football out of head coach Angelo Topaha’s bag and took to the outfield.
The Lady Panthers began tossing the football around and started up a game of 500, in which one person throws the ball in the air above the group of other players as they all try to catch it.
Shortly after, the Meeker players began to trickle out of the dugout and joined in on the fun.
The two teams mingled in the outfield, laughing, climbing on each other’s shoulders and making the most of the free time that the absentee umpires had provided while music blasted from the home dugout.
They weren’t rivals.
They weren’t enemies.
They were high school kids having fun.
Parents and coaches realized the uniqueness of the situation and began photographing the friendly exhibition of good sportsmanship.
“It was pretty cool,” said Topaha. “It was something different. It was fun for the girls and it probably relaxed all of them.”
After an hour and fifteen minutes, the football game ended and a game of sharks and minnows began, with players running back and forth in the outfield trying to avoid being tagged by the “sharks.”
The umpires arrived shortly after, and at 12:52 p.m. M-CHS freshman Presley Frost threw out the first pitch for the originally scheduled 11 a.m. game.
The Lady Panthers fell in the opener 9-7, and then dropped the second contest 10-6.
But they’ll likely remember what transpired in the outfield before the games than they will the specifics of either.
