Playing on a frigidly cold day was just one of the Park City High School baseball team’s problems on Tuesday afternoon. In a game that had already been rescheduled due to weather, the Miners lost a 7-3 lead in the first three innings to eventually fall to West High School 8-7.

The game looked to be well in the Miners’ hand at the beginning of the game after they scored three runs in the first inning and another in the four in the fourth inning to West’s two. The Panthers did manage to make up one of those runs on a home run to left field. Then a number of defensive missteps by the Miners allowed West to slowly creep back into the game, eventually tying the Miners in the sixth.

“We have to have a solid defense,” said Park City closing pitcher Chris Shapard. “We let them back in.”

A walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh by West’s Michael Valdez after Park City’s David Feasler missed the ball at first base drove Chance Albrath home for the win.

“The failure of our team to make key plays is what beat us, “said Park City head coach Howard Hoyt.

Shapard agreed.

“Normally we make good plays,” Shapard said. “We need to get ourselves together.”

This isn’t the first time the Miners have scored to start a game and then gone on to lose. They scored a home run to open up their game against Cedar City last weekend and lost 7-1. The problem that time was defensive struggles mixed with hitting woes. Once again, hitting problems plagued the Miners in the West game as their bats went silent after the third inning.

“We got greedy at the end and started to hit too hard,” said Park City closing pitcher Chris Shapard.

With a number of strikeouts and missed opportunities in the batter’s box, the Miners left a number of runners on base another problematic trend that has been plaguing the team since the beginning of the season.

Both the defensive errors and the runners on base have been a source of concern for Hoyt for a while, but he feels that the team is ready to turn a corner. Park City will likely play a weather makeup game against Morgan sometime before the weekend is up, and Hoyt expects the team to come out angry and ready to prove something after losing such a sizeable lead in the West game.

“I expect them to come back looking to take something out on them,” Hoyt said.

Losing against good teams in the preseason isn’t the end of the world, but the Miners will have to clean up their mistakes by Monday when they will face their biggest nemesis of all defending state champion Judge Memorial, which also happens to be their biggest rival. With a senior-stocked team, the Miners are hoping that this is year that they can finally make a good run against the Bulldogs.

The Miners will travel to face the Judge Bulldogs Monday at 3:30 p.m. at the St. Ann’s Field located at 430 East 2100 South in Salt Lake.