Bingham blows by Brighton

The Brighton baseball team lost to Bingham 6-4 Wednesday afternoon. The team made several mistakes in the field and on the bases, running itself out of several scoring opportunities. And the Bengals gave up three unearned runs. The game however, was not a total loss. For the first time this season, Brian Lahti watched his team play a game.

Lahti was projected to be the Bengals' first baseman, and he was to bat in the heart of the order. Instead, Lahti is watching the season from a wheelchair. Lahti and a couple teammates were in a car accident before the season started. His teammates are back on the field, but Lahti is struggling to regain movement in his legs. Lahti was able to come to the baseball diamond and watch the game from the dugout.

"Brian is still a part of the team. It was important to him to be able to put on his uniform and be here today," said Brighton coach Greg Hales. Unfortunately for the Bengals, it was not a great performance.

Bingham's Cole Anderson led off the game by drawing a walk. Three batters later starting pitcher Jeff McDonald had a RBI single. "I don't think we have had any games this year without letting them (opponents) score a first-inning run," said Hales. "It is a trend that puts us on our heels early, and we are having a tough time coming back."

Brighton did score in the bottom half of the inning, and had a chance to score another run, but in what became an alarming trend, the Bengals were thrown out at the plate to end the inning.

The Miners were more opportunistic. In the third inning, Mike Williams scored on a double steal. In the fourth inning, Williams hit an RBI-double, and Jonathan Cluff scored on one of the Bengals' three errors, giving them a 5-1 lead.

McDonald did not give up a lot of hits, but he did not keep runners off the bases either. The Bingham hurler surrendered 10 walks in six innings. The problem for the Bengals was that they kept finding ways to get those runners out.

"We were not getting good reads or jumps. Three outs at home, two at second and a guy picked off at first, that's your ball game right there," Hales said.

The Bengals did make it interesting by scoring runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings before Bingham's Zach Druce came in to close the door and pick up the save.

"We're playing like we are afraid to make mistakes instead of playing to win. When you play that way, it almost forces you to make more mistakes, and the way we are playing is just not Brighton baseball," said Hales.