After getting Dacula’s Alex Gelmini to bounce into an inning-ending double play with two runners on to keep the game scoreless, the play was then reversed by the three-man umpire crew after it was determined that the ground ball to shortstop grazed the field umpire positioned up the middle.

Instead, Gelmini was awarded first base, and the other two Falcons already on base were awarded second and third, loading the bases for Tanner Holloway.

Holloway then drew a bases-loaded walk to score the game’s first run, and two batters later, Reiston Durham cleared the bases with a double into the left-centerfield gap to give the Falcons a 4-0 lead.

With both teams having already left the field following the double play, it wasn’t until the umpire crew got together and reversed the call that allowed the Falcons another opportunity to break through with the game’s first runs.

“It completely changed the game,” Dacula head coach Jake Bova said. “The field umpire said it didn’t hit him, He was trying to claim that it didn’t hit him. I heard it. Everybody heard it. It also slowed the ball down. So once the umpires got together, the home plate umpire saw it and that’s what made them change the call.”

And as fate would have it, four runs were all the Falcons needed to put the Danes away.

Sophomore right-hander Jared Glenn took the mound with a four-run lead and went on to toss a two-hit complete-game shutout in five innings to send the Falcons into the quarterfinals with a dominant 10-0 win.

The Falcons tacked on four more runs in the third, one in the fourth and one in the fifth to reach the 10-run mark. Glenn allowed just four base runners in the game and held the Danes’ 1-4 hitters to a combined 0-for-9 on the day.

Bova said that he was very confident that if his team scored first, they would run away with the victory.

“We talked about if we came out and scored a bunch of runs in the top of the first that we felt like we were going to run away with it, which is exactly what happened,” Bova said. “We got the opportunity and Reiston had the big double. He’s a freshman that’s had a heck of a year and he has a very bright future.”

Bova and the Falcons pushed all of the right buttons in Saturday afternoon’s victory. They executed two hit-and-runs that both led to runs being scored, and they gave their young pitcher a huge confidence boost by giving him a big lead early on.

Glenn showed no signs of nerves at any point and was virtually unhittable in all five innings that he pitched.

“We talked about it on the way here that we need Jared to be who we know he can be,” Bova said. “That’s exactly why we had him as our Game 3 starter, because we know that he can take care of business. He has a very, very bright future.”

Durham added to his big day later in the game when he drove in two more runs with a single in the third inning. He finished his day 2-for-2 with five RBIs and a walk. Holloway was credited with two RBIs for the Falcons after reaching base three times.

The Falcons entered the playoffs as a No. 3 seed and now find themselves in the quarterfinals after knocking off both Norcross and Denmark.

“Nobody kind of expected us to be where we were at,” Bova said about coming into their second-round matchup against Denmark. “I kept telling the guys that nobody expected us to be here, so we needed to take advantage of it. We knew that if we got to a Game 3 in this series we felt like we had the advantage.”

They will now travel to face Parkview, the tournament favorite to win the Class 7A state championship.

“That’s what we’re going to talk about for the next several days as we prepare for (Parkview),” Bova said. “We just have to embrace the underdog role and go over there and just play the game. That’s something that I’ve talked about ever since I got this job is it doesn’t matter who we’re playing. You just have to go out there and play your game, and our guys have been working their butts off since the end of August. We’re going to go leave it all out on the field.”