One of the good things about baseball is that when you have a rough afternoon, it’s usually not that long until you’re back on the field for another go at it.
Hartland suffered its first loss of the season Friday, a 9-7 defeat to Walled Lake Central, in a battle of conference division leaders. But the Eagles, who committed five errors, will get a chance to refocus when the team travels to Adrian for a doubleheader Saturday.
Hartland hit the ball well against the Vikings, but it was defense that cost the Eagles.
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“Errors,” answered senior Sean Bennett when asked the difference in the game. “We’ve got to make the routine plays. ... This is the best team we’ve faced, but we beat ourselves.”
Walled Lake Central is 8-3 overall and leads the Kensington Lakes Activities Association North Division with a 3-1 mark. With the loss, Hartland drops to 8-1 overall but remains 4-0 in the KLAA West Division.
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The West and North Division make up the Lakes Conference of the KLAA and, according to Vikings’ coach Mike Roffi, the Eagles and Vikings share more than just the lead in their respective divisions.
“Coach (Brian Morrison) and I have been leading these two programs and we’ve been playing like this for seven years,” Roffi said. “We both show respect and have dedication. But every game is like this. We’ve got to make the plays just as much as they do.”
The teams went back and forth most of the game. Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the third, Hartland senior Shane Felix had an RBI double and later scored to give his team a 3-2 lead.
However, the next inning, an error and a couple walks by sophomore pitcher Jake Lowery led to a pair of runs for the Vikings, who then led 4-3.
The Vikings scored two more runs in the fifth, knocking Lowery out of the game. He was replaced by sophomore Anthony Villar, who finished the game.
Bennett led off Hartland’s half of the fifth with a double and later scored on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Kyle Garner to make it 6-4.
Another error led to two more Walled Lake Central runs in the the sixth, giving the Vikings their largest lead, 8-4.
Lowery and Bennett had RBI singles in the sixth for the Eagles who climbed to within 8-7 before getting shut down in the bottom of the seventh.
“When you play a great team, you’ve got to make routine plays,” Morrison said. “We made five errors on what I thought were routine plays. ... They made the plays and we didn’t.”