Hartland Eagles Baseball

BRIGHTON — Under a brilliant sun, the Hartland and Brighton baseball teams put on a display Wednesday that showed why both teams are considered among the state’s best.

In the opener, a 1-0 nail-biter that lasted barely over an hour, Brighton pulled out a win with a single in the sixth.

In the nightcap, the Bulldogs rallied from a 4-0 deficit for a 6-4 victory.

“Two good baseball games,” Hartland coach Brian Morrison said. “We just weren’t on top in either of them.”

In the opener, Ryan McClelland and Jake Lowery traded zeros for five innings.

McClelland, Brighton’s starter, was almost unhittable, allowing only a double by Anthony Villar and making the Eagles hit mostly to the right side of the field.

“He was getting ahead of people and hitting his spots,” Villar said. “He threw real good.”

So did Lowery, who mastered the Bulldogs until the sixth.

He struck out the first two hitters, then allowed a single to Blake Pokorski and hit McClelland with a pitch.

That brought up Kyle Bederka, who singled home Andrew Chevalier, who was a courtesy runner for Pokorski, with the game’s only run.

“He was pitching me away,” Bederka said. “Each at-bat, I took it that way and finally I found the hole.”

McClelland was not surprised.

“I knew Kyle was going to get that,” he said. “Kyle’s our big-spot guy. He drives the ball when we need him to.”

Bederka showed tenacity on defense, too, knocking down a hard grounder by Hartland’s Travis Johnson in the top of the seventh, stumbled, lurched forward, and tagged the bag to retire Johnson.

In the nightcap, the Eagles got on the board in the fourth. With two outs, Lowery singled off Brighton starter Alexx Zielinski, who allowed an infield single by Johnson, a two-run double by Villar and a two-run shot by Jordan Kesson to left-center.

But the Bulldogs came back with three in the bottom of the inning, the big hit a two-run single by Bederka, and three more in the fifth, two of them on a two-run double by Zach Vitkuske.

“Like every game this season, every game we’ve fallen behind, we’ve gotten back in the game and got on top,” Brighton coach Charlie Christner said.

But the lasting memory of the day was the pitching for both teams, which also included Alex Wagner, who started the nightcap for Hartland.

“There were four big-time pitchers throwing today,” Christner said.

“For the most part, I thought we pitched and played defense pretty well,” Morrison said. “We didn’t hit very well. And the guys know that. But hitting is easier to turn around than pitching and defense. We’ll keep working on it and see how it works out.”

The loss dropped Hartland (8-5 overall, 4-3 KLAA West) two games behind Brighton (10-2, 6-1) and Howell, which swept Grand Blanc on Wednesday.

“It was definitely fun to play,” McClelland said of the twin bill. “I’ve played against them my whole life and it was fun to go against them one last time.”

Actually, the teams meet again in Saturday’s Shelander Classic. But Wednesday’s games were ones worth remembering.