Country Club closed at Bingham

One word describes Bingham’s practice on Tuesday: tense.

If you thought the Miners were over their stunning loss to Skyline last week, think again. The defeat confirmed some concerns coach Dave Peck has about this year’s Bingham team, and he was almost disgusted by the way some of his players approached the game, and how they seemed nonchalant about the loss.

The atmosphere on Tuesday was far from warm and fuzzy. As Peck finished up an interview with the guys from Comcast, offensive coordinator John Lambourne somewhat lit into the players as they waited to start practice. It was something I hadn’t seen before at Bingham, and it was nothing compared to what was coming in a few minutes.

After the players warmed up, Peck brought the players together and picked up where Lambourne left off ‘ and took it up about 10 notches. Peck is an intense guy on Friday nights, but I’ve never seen him like he was in his pre-practice speech. But let me back up a few minutes.

I interviewed Peck after he was finished with Comcast, and he talked about how he was embarrassed by the loss to Skyline. He wasn’t trying to take anything away from the Eagles. He was mostly disappointed in his players. He talked about defining moments in the Bingham program, and wondered how his team would approach the annual Alta clash.

In his speech, he talked about how devastated his players were when they lost to Davis 7-0 in the 2004 playoffs. He contrasted that with players laughing after Friday night’s loss to Skyline. He called people out who were putting their individual glory over the team’s needs. He said kids who were more concerned about individual needs than the team could hand in their stuff right then and there.

‘Country Club is over,’ Peck told his players. ‘We’re going to find out who wants to be here.’

And with that conditioning started. It was still going on when I left.

It will be interesting to see how Bingham comes out for Friday night’s game. I was told by someone who saw the film of last Friday’s game that Skyline just punched Bingham in the mouth at the start of the game and kept bringing it all night long. What should the Miners expect from the Hawks? As Apollo told Rocky before the Clubber Lang rematch, ‘You thought I was tough, this chump will kill you.’

I’m not calling anyone a chump. Just making a point.

So time will tell if the Miners come together after last week’s loss and the brutal conditioning they’re being put through this week. I don’t think this is a must-win for the Miners this week. There’s never been a nonregion game in state history that’s been a must-win in Week 2. But it is a must-play-hard-and-play-together-for-48-minutes-type of game for Bingham.

If they don’t, the Miners will get embarrassed by Alta on Friday night.