April 26, 2008 – FORT LORAMIE
Covington coach Mitch Hirsch couldn't have been more proud of his team for their performance in the Fort Loramie Baseball Tournament at Fort Loramie High School over the weekend.

Covington defeated Troy Christian 14-2 on Friday and then knocked off a high-powered Minster team 4-1 Saturday morning before falling to Monroe 12-7 in the final.

"I'm proud of the way the kids played so far this weekend," said Hirsch, who still has one more game left this weekend tomorrow night against St. Henry at Fifth-Third Field. "We just ran out of pitchers in the final, but the kids battled hard."

Covington used the services of Darrell Thobe on Thursday against Franklin Monroe and already committed to having Andy Sparks pitch against St. Henry.

That left David Moss, Jake Bitner, Kyle Kanet and Ben Christian left to throw in the tournament.

Bitner and Kanet pitched all but three outs Friday against Troy Christian, leaving Moss and Christian the only fresh arms for Saturday.

Moss was his typical dominant self against Minster as pitched a two-hitter in a 4-1 victory. He struck out five and walked four.

"Our plan was to use Moss against Minster and then hopefully throw everyone else against the winner of Fort Loramie and Monroe," Hirsch explained. "Moss did an outstanding job against Minster and our defense backed him up really well. They hit the ball hard."

Covington scored a run in the first, two in fourth and another in the fifth for a 4-1 lead.

"Once David got the lead you could see it in his eyes that he wasn't got to let it slip away," Hirsch said. "He went out there and shut them down."

The strategy Hirsch had for utilizing the pitchers he had available for Madison was working to perfection for two and one-half innings as Covington built a 7-1 lead.

Ben Christian started and held Madison in check until the bottom of the third when four runs went up on the board to cut the Covington lead to 7-5.

Darrell Thobe came in on little rest and stopped the bleeding by pitching a scoreless inning in the fourth.

But five more Madison runs in he fifth led to the entrance of freshman Jake Bitner, who pitched nearly five innings just 24 hours earlier.

Madison scored two more runs in the sixth to seal Covington's fate by the score of 12-7.

"We ran out of arms," Hirsch said. "I'd love to play them again straight up because I think we match up pretty well. It would be a good game, I know that."

Still, Hirsch was pleased with the way his kids battled, even while being out gunned on the mound.

"These kids just play hard," Hirsch said. "We neat a really good Minster team and had a 7-1 lead on Madison. Even when they got on a roll, we kept playing hard. We scored seven runs and had nine hits against a very good baseball team. We just couldn't stop them once they got rolling."

Covington's record now stands at 12-4 with one more big game left this weekend.

"Hopefully Andy (Sparks) can give us a lot of good innings tomorrow," said Hirsch. "We have a game in each of the next four days and we're running out of pitchers."

After tomorrow nights contest against St. Henry, the Buccs play New Knoxville on Monday, Newton on Tuesday and Tri-Village on Wednesday.

COVINGTON - MINSTER
Scoring by Innings:
Minster ............0...0...1...0...0...0...0 - 1 .. 2 .. 1
Covington .......1...0...0...2...1...0...0 - 4 .. 4 .. 0

COVINGTON - MADISON
Scoring by Innings:
Covington ......1...2...4...0...0...0...0 - 7 .. 9 .. 3
Madison .........1...0...4...0...5...2...0 - 12 .. 14 .. 4