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HAMILTON — The only thing missing from Stang Field on Thursday, April 24, was Rod Serling.

The weird, wacky game certainly was worthy of a "Twilight Zone" episode, what with a 35-minute first inning in which both teams scored three runs, a hit batter not being awarded first base and a pitcher warning turning into a run-scoring balk before morphing into a big old "never mind because timeout was supposedly called first" highlighting the list of strange happenings.

And then there were the normally sound Lakota East Thunderhawks committing an eye-popping nine errors, while leather-challenged Hamilton played error free.

After two hours, seven innings and countless umpire-umpire and umpire-coach meetings/rule clarifications, Big Blue walked off the field with a 7-5 victory.

"A lot of our games have been strange lately, so I guess you could say I've been in the Twilight Zone for awhile," Hamilton coach Dan Bowling said after watching his team win for just the third time in its last 11 games to improve to 10-9 overall and 7-5 in the Greater Miami Conference.

Lakota East, which fell to

12-6, 7-5 GMC, committed four errors in one inning and at least one in every frame except the second and the sixth.

"I guess the weirdest thing was looking up at the scoreboard and seeing nine errors in the guest column instead of the home column," Bowling added.

Andrew Ruecking, Austin LeMaster and Brandon Whaley each collected a pair of hits to lead the Hamilton offense, but perhaps the biggest star of the day was starting pitcher Justin Binegar.

Big Blue's sophomore right-hander labored through the first few innings and didn't appear to have any chance of finishing the game, especially after issuing a bases-loaded walk in the fourth that drew the Thunderhawks to within 5-4.

"As soon as (Bowling) called time, I thought for sure he was coming to take me out," Binegar said. "But he just came out and really challenged me to throw strikes and show some heart."

Binegar (3-2) retired the next two batters to get out of the bases-loaded jam, and East never got another runner as far as second base until Colton Cattani capped a 3-for-4 day with a one-out double in the top of the seventh.

"Usually when I go out to the mound, I take the guy out, but I just wanted to challenge him," Bowling said. "He was close, real close. He was a batter away a couple of times, but he got his second wind and really showed me something."

Wes Smith (3-1) also went the distance for East, allowing just three earned runs. But he couldn't overcome the defense behind him.

"We gave a lot of extra chances today, and we haven't done that all year long," LEHS coach Ray Hamilton said about his team's rash of errors. "We're not going to dwell on it. We've still got a bunch of baseball to play."

It starts today at home against Mason. Hamilton also will be in action today, traveling to Sycamore.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2193 or jmorrison@coxohio.com.

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