For the first time in school history, the Covington Buccaneers captured the CCC title in baseball with a 4-1 win over Newton.

May 5, 2007 – COVINGTON
The Covington Buccaneers are no stranger to capturing Cross County Conference championships in football, basketball and softball - but the Buccaneers have never won one in baseball, until now.

Thanks to strong pitching by David Moss and a stellar defensive effort, the Buccaneers defeated Newton 4-1 to lock up sole possession of the Cross County Conference championship for the first time in school history.

“Winning the conference was one of our goals,” Moss said. “Covington won the conference in football and basketball, but we had never won one in baseball.”

Moss, who improved to 5-0 on the season, held Newton to just five hits on the day by keeping the Indians off balance throughout the contest. He struck of four batters and walk just one.

“That is only the second walk he's given up this season,” Covington coach Mitch Hirsch said. “David (Moss) does a great job of throwing strikes. He doesn’t have a lot of strikeouts ... maybe 30, but he just gets a lot of ground balls. All five of his games are complete games and his ERA might be below 1.00 now.”

The Buccs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first as Kyle Kanet singled to start the inning. Nate Lavey then doubled to bring in Kanet.

After a mishandled fly ball by the Indians and a walk loaded the bases, Tyler Kanet drew the walk for the second run.

“When David (Moss) pitches, we know we can win with three or four runs,” Hirsch said. “To get two runs in the first inning was huge.”

The Buccaneers added to their lead in the fourth. Darrell Thobe singled and another Lavey double made it 3-0.

Newton finally got on the scoreboard in the fifth on a Josh Pearce RBI single after a Covington error.

Hirsch has been preaching to his kids all season about developing a killer instinct and putting teams away when they were down.

It paid dividends Saturday as the Buccs got the run back in the sixth. Kyle Kanet got on base with a double that nearly left the ball park. He then scored on an error on a hard-hit ball by Gene Studebaker, who collided with first baseman Matt Prickett.

Moss the closed out the Indians in the top of the seventh to preserve the 4-1 victory.

Kyle Kanet went 2-for-3 for the Buccs, while Nate Lavey was 3-for-4.

The Buccs improve to 16-3 on the season and 11-0 in the Cross County Conference with one conference game to play, a mak-up game with Tri-County North.

Covington has a first round bye in the tournament and play the winner of Fairlawn and Lehman on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

“We can focus on the tournament now,” Hirsch, who received a Gatoroade® shower on a surprise attack after the game, said. “This is the first conference title for Covington in baseball. This is a great group of kids. They have worked hard for this.”

LINESCORE
Newton .......000 010 0 — 1 5 3
Covington ...200 101 x — 4 7 2