Nine Brighton High School seniors will spend Saturday in the dugout and on the baseball diamond instead of at their graduation ceremony.

The varsity baseball team will play Northville in Novi during the MHSAA regional semifinals. Because the senior team members will have to miss graduation, Brighton Area Schools held a special early graduation ceremony at the Board of Education meeting room in the Brighton Education Community Center on Thursday night.

"Personally, I think most of the guys are okay with it," team captain Colin Nash said about missing the graduation ceremony. "Obviously, we'd like to be there with the rest of our class, but you know we've been working for this all year and it's definitely worth it."

"Having our own graduation is pretty cool," Captain Doug Walters added.

The ceremony was a shortened version of Saturday's with only one valedictorian speaker and one student musical performance.

Superintendent Greg Gray said he was in a very similar situation 22 years ago, as he was one of nine players on a baseball team headed to finals. He told the nine young men, his team lost though.

"May your feet be swift, may your bats be mighty and may your first pitch strike," Gray told the graduates.