HOWELL — Their conference season over, the Howell baseball team looked forward to a weekend off after Thursday’s 5-2 win over Brighton.
“We’ll pick up a game Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday,” Howell co-coach Jason Ladd said. “Then we’ll play four games in the Flint tournament next weekend.”
In the meantime, he added, “we’ll rest up a little bit, hit the weight room a little bit and get a little stronger and stay where we need to be for the finish run here.”
Thursday’s game was a continuation of a game suspended by darkness on April 20.
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Howell had taken a 2-0 lead on a two-run homer by Caleb Balgaard. the game was resumed in the top of the third and Brighton tied it immediately on a two-run single by Trevor Hopman.
The run-scoring hit was set up when Cameron Tullar walked and Sam Williamson doubled to begin the inning against Garrett Styczynski.
“It was mostly settling in and finding my slider,” Styczynski said of his early struggles. “I was missing on the fastball (Williamson) hit. I kind of left it over the middle. I found it after that.”
Howell took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning.
Bryan Rendell led off with a single, stole second, went to third on a double play and scored on a wild pitch by Brighton’s Joe Salvato.
Howell added a pair of runs in the fifth on an RBI double by Sam Weatherly and a sacrifice fly by Balgaard.
Styczynski went four innings to pick up the win in relief of Spencer Ford, who went the first two innings in April. Bailey Burton, who got the win in Wednesday’s KLAA title game, pitched a scoreless seventh.
“We just wanted to keep the guys fresh, keep it going,” Ladd said. “We were playing against a good team. There’s something to be said about playing good teams and getting opportunities to play on beautiful days like today.”
Johnny Shields was 3-for-3 to pace the Howell hitters.
The Highlanders (25-6) won their 12th in a row, while Brighton (18-6-1) saw a 13-game winning streak come to an end.
The Bulldogs will play at Ann Arbor Huron in a doubleheader today, and Brighton coach Charlie Christner noted his team could play the Highlanders again in districts.
“I’d be happy with that,” he said. “We’ll have to beat either Pinckney or a really good Dexter team to get there. … It is what it is. We’ll have to play these teams at some point anyway.”
