PENDLETON — The Pendleton Heights baseball team struggled last week as it fell in three consecutive games to Anderson (7-1) and Delta in a doubleheader (15-2, 15-6).

But the overwhelming memory from the games had nothing to do with baseball.

Anderson senior Zach Gooding took a hard blow to the head while attempting to steal second base in the contest with the Arabians on Thursday. He was taken to an Anderson hospital and was later transferred to Indianapolis.

An update on his status was not available by the Pendleton News’ press time.

PH coach Bill Stoudt talked about the accident and how it makes him focus on what is really important in life.

“It is very scary and you don’t even see it coming,” Stoudt said. “It just happened so quickly. Our shortstop tries to go and make a play and his knee goes into Gooding’s head. You don’t know at that time exactly what’s going on. It’s always a really tough thing to deal with and it’s very unfortunate because he’s such a good player.

“But I think he’s going to come out of it OK; it’s just going to take time. Baseball means a lot to him and he’s probably going to lose this whole year. It does make you stop and think. You know, you don’t want anything bad to happen, but sometimes I think young people need to see how fragile things are and how quickly your life can change. I think everyone saw that.”

Gooding was expected to continue his baseball career at the collegiate level, but Stoudt hopes he doesn’t rush into anything.

“He’s a really tough kid. If it’s possible to come back at all, he will. But anytime you get a head injury, you just have to be so careful. You think that baseball is relatively safe, but it just takes one pitch that gets away and it can happen like that again.”