The first and final pitches thrown by St. Anne/Donovan’s Preston Harrington-Dewitt came over three hours apart against Kankakee Tuesday.

Between them, he played six innings at second base and hit a grand slam in what turned out to be a wild 13-10 win for the Cardinals (5-3) in a 10-inning marathon against the Kays (2-10).

Harrington-Dewitt started on the mound, allowed three runs in the first and was pulled with after allowing two straight hits to start the second, with both batters later scoring.

The Cardinals were down 8-0 by the end of the second, but his grand slam in the top of the fifth tied the game at 8-8.

When the game went to extras, the senior Harrington-Dewitt returned to the mound.

He allowed just two hits over the final three innings, allowing his team to reclaim the lead in the 10th and pick up the win.

Harrington-Dewitt said he’s never had to re-enter after already pitching, but the rally he and his teammates put together to get back in the game gave him the confidence he needed to finish things off.

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” he said. “When you’ve got a team really putting it together and rally and you’ve got everybody behind you, it gives you the motivation to go out there, put your team first and do what they need you to do.

“...I’d never been in a situation like that, but it feels really good to redeem myself.”

Kankakee’s Johnny Short had an RBI single as part of a three-run first inning and a two-run single in the second as the first batter facing Cassen Berryhill, who relieved Harrington-Dewitt.

A pair of errors and two wild pitches allowed the Kays to build up that 8-0 lead by the end of the second.

The Cardinals got a run in the fourth and then erupted in the fifth, getting RBIs from Jackson Hawkins, Berryhill and Jamey Hawkins before Harrington-Dewitt hit his game-tying grand slam.

An RBI groundout from Liam Goodrich gave the Cardinals a 9-8 lead soon after.

Things were tied up again at 10-10 by the end of the seventh, but wasn’t until the 10th that Jackson Hawkins scored on an error and Jamey Hawkins drove in a pair with a single to give the Cardinals the lead for good.

“We really stabbed ourselves in the back early with a lot of errors, but I could tell from the dugout atmosphere that we didn’t feel like we were out of it,” Cardinals coach Ike Speiser said. “Once we got a couple across I kind of got the feeling we were going to keep climbing, figure something out and at least make it a competitive game.”

For the Kays, Short was 3 for 5 with three RBIs and three runs while Dylan Shepard and Bryce Arceneaux each drove in a pair of runs.

Kankakee head coach Nick Crowe said while it was nice the team was able to build that early lead, they simply wasted too many opportunities to add on.

“We get up 8-0 and we think we’re on cruise control,” he said. “You’ve got to play the game the right way, keep tacking on and tacking on. When you don’t play the game the right way, it’s not going to keep going your way. The ball doesn’t bounce your way.”

Tuesday’s game was held at Kankakee Community College, meaning good friends Crowe and Speiser would be coaching against each other on the field they shared as KCC teammates in 2018.

Monday’s rain forced the game to be moved from Diamond Point Park in Bourbonnais, so Crowe called KCC baseball coach and athletic director Bryce Shafer, who was also his and Speiser’s pitching coach.

“Bryce Shafer has done a phenomenal job keeping this field immaculate,” Crowe said. “Coaching against [Speiser] is really special. We even joked about it, saying who would’ve though we’d be here five, six years ago, being on this field coaching against each other. It was really special.”

For Speiser, finding himself where his former KCC head coach Todd Post stood and coached so many games was an experience he really enjoyed.

“It was cool to be out here, instead of being on the mound being in the third-base coaching box where someone like Todd Post, who I look up to so much, was at,” he said. “It was really cool, kind of full circle.”