Is Any (Baseball) Game This Important?

I posted this story on Facebook a couple of days ago, but it's worth mentioning here. In a high school baseball game in Louisiana that went 18 innings, two pitchers accounted for 347 of the 501 pitches thrown in the game ("Two Pitchers Combine to Throw 347 Pitches in One Game"). One, Mitch Sewald (pictured at left) who has signed to play ball at LSU next year, pitched 10 innings and allowed one run on two hits, striking out 10 and throwing 154 pitches. The other, Emerson Gibbs who has signed with Tulane, pitched 15 innings and allowed one run on six hits, striking out 13 and throwing 193 pitches.

According to current research, high school pitchers shouldn't throw more than 105 pitches in a single game, but here we have two who went way beyond the recommended limit, I assume because their respective coaches wanted to win the game. But this begs the question, "Is any game so important that a coach is willing to risk the long-term health of his pitcher?" I don't think so, but evidently these coaches do.