When buddies are bigger than baseball, sportsmanship wins

Sometimes friendship means more than advancing to the state tournament.

Just ask Ty Koehn, a pitcher with Mounds View High School in Minnesota. With a berth to state on the line, Koehn needed one more strike to end the game. He got it, as Totino Grace's batter, Jack Kocon watched strike three whistle by.

The catch? Koehn and Kocon are longtime buddies, teammates even from back in their Little League days.

Rather than jumping around celebrating with his teammates about their good fortune, Koehn's first inclination was to immediately head to Kocon, a senior who just struck out in his final high school at-bat and console him.

Not just a pat on the back either. An embrace, and surely some words of comfort.

That's sportsmanship, and that's friendship.