APRIL 5, 2010 - COVINGTON
It's hard to win in baseball when you commit five errors and give up nine unearned runs to you opponent.

That's what the Covington Buccaneers went through Monday afternoon in a 12-2 loss to Versailles in five innings of play.

"It's tough," said Covington coach Mitch Hirsch. "It's not due to a lack of effort or a lack of talent. We're just not making plays right now."

The effort is there as evident by the play of Steven Blei and Andrew DeHart on two separate occasions.

In the top of the third DeHart dove for a ball hit to shallow center field, only to have the ball bounce out of his glove on what would have been an amazing catch.

In the following inning Blei dove for a line drive down the third base line. The ball bounced off his glove and into the outfield.

"We have kids busting their tails to make plays, but for some reason it's just not happening right now," Hirsch said. "Look at the effort by Steven (Blei). He gave everything he had to try and make that play at third and you had Jake Bitner hustling over from short to back up the play. The ball bounced off Steven's glove and got by Bitner because it changed directions so fast. Both kids hustled, but just couldn't make the play."

And Covington's pitchers aren't able to get off the field due to fielding miscues. Several times in the contest Covington was one of from getting out of an inning without any damage only to see Versailles put runs on the board.

"Our pitchers aren't doing all that bad," said Hirsch. "When we're giving them four or five outs an inning, our pitchers have to throw more pitches. We have to play better defense."

Versailles used Covington miscues to score five runs in the second and another in the third, all six runs unearned.

The Buccs then disposed of the first two batters in the fourth, only to give up three runs with two outs.

"We got the first two batters and then they got a runner on with a hit," Hirsch explained. "We had an error and it snowballs into three runs. When we have an error we need to learn to put it behind us and get out of the inning. We're not doing that right now."

Versailles then capped the contest with three more runs in the to of the fifth, one coming on a towering solo home run over the center field fence.

"We're going to get through this," said Hirsch. "We're a young team that needs to keep battling. The kids have the right attitudes."

Brandon Powell started the contest for the Buccs, pitching two innings before being replaced by Nick Long, who went one and two-thirds.

Brandon Flora and Adam Craft then pitched the final inning and a third.

Andrew DeHart and Nick Long each drove in a run, while Jake Stewart connected for a double.

Covington drops to 1-5 overall and will travel to Minster on Thursday.

SCORING BY INNINGS:
Versailles ..........0...5...1...3...3 - 12 - 12 - 1
Covington .........0...2...0...0...0 - 2 - 4 - 5