Illegal Pitch Calls Against Farish Beard To Be Examined By SBC Officials
Junior Farish Beard (17-5) was charged with eight illegal pitch calls in the first inning of the first game of a double-header on Saturday against Georgia State. Conference officials will review the video this week. | Photo usajaguars.com
During the Jaguar softball team’s opening game of the Saturday double-header, Farish Beard was on the receiving end of eight illegal pitch calls in the first inning of the Jaguars game against Georgia State. Those calls were critical in the game as on each illegal pitch call, the runners advance a base which scored their only two runs of the game.
First base umpire Destinee Robinson called all eight illegal pitches against Beard and the Jaguars. Eventually Hannah Campbell came in as relief and shut down the Panthers for the rest of the game, but the Jaguars could only manage one run to fall to the Panthers 2-1 in the game.
The illegal pitch call was because Robinson said that Beard’s foot came off the mound before the pitch was thrown.
Beard returned to the mound in game two with Robinson behind home plate umpiring and pitched all nine innings of the game and was not called for an illegal pitch in the game.
Since the call is a judgement call made by an official, the likelyhood that it is appealable is very slim, but the Sun Belt office is aware of it and almost certainly going to review the video.
Head coach Becky Clark said after the double-header, “You’ve got a pitcher who has thrown 117 innings (this season) and hasn’t had that called all year, and you get it called eight times in one inning.”