APRIL 2011 - COVINGTON
The Covington Buccaneers have lost three one-run games coming into Thursday night's Cross County Conference matchup with Arcanum, two of those one-run losses coming in the last two games.

And in each of the last two defeats, the Buccs squandered big leads in the final couple of innings.

That makes Thursday's nail biting 1-0 win over Arcanum in eight innings that much sweeter.

"With everything we've been through, these kids just keep battling," said a pleased Covington coach Mitch Hirsch. "Our mistakes cost us some games this year, but the kids just keep playing hard and continue to improve. Once we put it all together we should be pretty good. Hopefully this win gets us over the hump."

It's the type of win that could do just that for Covington as the Buccs had to play well in order to have a chance to win because Arcanum was on top of its game.

"Both teams played very well," Hirsch said. "Both pitchers threw really well and there wasn't very many errors. The errors that were committed were aggressive errors, not the mental errors that have kids us in the past."

Jake Stewart went the distance for Covington and Derrek Baker did the same for Arcanum, both striking out eight batters in the contest.

"It was good to see Jake throw well like he did, especially considering the problems he's had with his shoulder this year," said Hirsch. "Their pitcher threw well too, so I want to give him some credit as well."

It was a pitcher's dual as both teams combined for just five hits in the contest.

But it was the last two hits Covington connected on that made the difference - both coming in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Kellen Woloch led off the inning with a single and was replaced by Kyler Deeter as a pinch runner.

Andrew DeHart put down a perfect bunt to move Deeter to second on the sacrifice and then Ben Wilson ended the game with a line shot to left field to score Deeter from second.

"We only had one hit to that points, so we needed someone to get us going and Kellen did just that," Hirsch explained. "Andrew did a nice job of moving Deeter to second and Ben got the big hit when we needed it."

Covington had its chances earlier to the game to put runs on the board, but couldn't capitalize on the opportunities.

The Buccs had runners on second and third with one out in the first inning, first and second with no outs in the second inning and first and second with two outs in the third inning. All three times the Buccs left the runners stranded.

"We had our chances in the first three innings," Hirsch said. "We got some runners on with walks, but couldn't get the big hit to put runs on the board."

Fortunately, Stewart was stellar on the mound and the defense was stingy behind him, preventing Arcanum from threatening throughout the contest.

This lead to a scoreless game after seven innings of play as the two teams moved into extra innings.

Covington closed down Arcanum's three batters in the top of the eighth to set up the heroics of Kellen Wolloch, Andrew DeHart, Kyler Deeter and Ben Wilson in the bottom half of the inning.

"They (Arcanum) had only lost one game coming into tonight, so that says what type of team they are," said Hirsch. "But we proved to ourselves that we can play with anybody."

Arcanum drops to 11-2 on the season, while Covington improves to 3-7 overall and 3-2 in the CCC.

SCORING BY INNINGS:
Arcanum .............0..0..0..0..0..0..0..0 - 0 - 2 - 1
Covington ...........0..0..0..0..0..0..0..1 - 1 - 3 - 1