BRIGHTON — Despite three very different results for the Brighton bracket teams in Saturday’s Shelander Classic, each coach agreed on one tenet: Defense wins games.Or in Hartland’s case, defense at least keeps you in the game.Or, in Pinckney’s, defense can be strong, even in a disappointing game or two.Combining the former with some solid hitting in its second showing of the afternoon, though, set the Bulldogs apart from their opponents.“We had pretty good swings all day, and in the second game (against Pinckney), we got them to drop, and that was the difference,” Brighton coach Charlie Christner said. “We just didn’t find as many holes against Hartland.”Maybe not, but Brighton still managed to turn a couple of singles into three speedy runs to get out ahead of the Eagles — and stay there.“After playing (and losing to) Brighton on Wednesday, we were hoping to get a win against them (Saturday),” pitcher Jordan Kesson said. “But we just weren’t hitting the ball. It seems like all year, we’ve been swinging at pitches that aren’t our pitch."It’s digging us into a hole we can’t get out of,” he added, noting that the downturn makes it more imperative for the senior leaders to keep the team’s frustrations in check.But the Eagles did turn the tables on Pinckney in their second game of the morning, capitalizing on a single from Kesson in the sixth inning to plate Travis Johnson.It highlighted a problem that Eagles coach Brian Morrison said is relatively good for Hartland to battle through: Despite poor hitting in recent outings, the team’s defense and pitching has been more than solid, as the Eagles held Brighton to three runs in the first game, and shut out Pinckney in the second.“We do have to start swinging the bat,” Morrison said. “But the positive to take out of this is we’re still putting ourselves in positions to win despite not hitting at all right now.“We just have to get the offense going,” he finished. “And it’s a lot easier to do that than the other way around.”The Pirates perhaps had most reason to be frustrated in their outings: Pinckney committed six errors against Hartland, one more against Brighton, and managed just four hits and no runs on the day.“The kids played hard, played well, we just didn’t do what we needed to do on the little things, and those come back to haunt you,” Pinckney coach Shane Davis said. “A couple walks here, a couple balls there, single after single after single. The really good teams? They don’t do those things.”Ironic for Pinckney, too, because while both Brighton and Hartland have lamented less-than-perfect hitting compared to strong defensive efforts thus far this season, the Pirates have counted on their bats in most outings.“(Saturday) was actually kind of surprising, offensively, because as-of-late, we’ve been crushing the ball,” outfielder Tanner Tulgetske said. “Today, things just didn’t go our way.”Things did go Brighton’s way, as the team advanced to the championship game against Howell later in the afternoon. Hartland and Pinckney headed home, buoyed by the takeaway Tulgetske said he saw from the day."We’ll just keep our heads up and keep going, because this tournament doesn’t count necessarily toward our season (standings), but it does show us what we need to work on and do better,” he explained. “So we just have to take that and use it.”At Howell, Fowlerville beat Ann Arbor Pioneer, 6-2, for its first win of the season after losing 9-0 to the Highlanders in the first game of the day.
“We got some swings and got competitive,” said first-year coach Tony Puente, whose team is 1-8. “We can’t keep scrimmaging or palying against the Jv. We needed to see some live things and they’re starting to happen. It was a great team win.”
Game #1
Hartland 1
Brigthon 3
Game # 2
Hartland 2
Pinckney 0
