May 19, 2008 – BRANDT
The pain of losing in the sectional final to rival Newton 8-5 will stick with the Covington Lady Buccs for some time, but they'll eventually look back at their season with pride because they overcame so much adversity along the way to get to the sectional final.

Midway through the season Covington lost starting pitcher Jessica Shrout for the rest of the year. Shrout was Covington's ace and has meant so much to the Lady Buccs' program for four years.

Not only was Shrout out, the Lady had to overcome nagging injuries to Erin Christian and Kristen Boggs.

The bottom eventually fell out for Covington on April 18th in a 10-0 rune-rule loss to Arcanum.

But coach Dean Denlinger and the Lady Buccs rallied the troops to win ten of the last twelve games, including tournament victories over Yellow Springs and Springfield Central Catholic by the combined scores of 31-0.

Covington did all this by having younger players like freshman Chloe Shell step up and the injured players in Kristen Boggs and Erin Christian playing through the pain.

This set up a rematch against the Lady Indians, who defeated Covington 7-2 on April 29th in a game where the Lady Buccs committed three errors and only had three hits off of Indian pitcher Katie Stewart.

Those same mistakes hit Covington hard in the rematch as the Lady Buccs committed five uncharacteristic fielding errors in the contest.

"You hate to end the season on a negative, but we made three mistakes in the field that normally don't happen," Covington coach Dean Denlinger said. "They were just three balls they put in play that we normally field."

Giving a pitcher like Stewart and a team like Newton that many gifts made it difficult for Covington to overcome.

But the Lady Buccs didn't fold the tents as they overcame a 7-2 deficit with three runs in the bottom of the sixth to cut the margin to 7-5.

Pinch-hitter Halley Roberts led off the inning with a single, one of five in the inning for Covington. Christian singled to put runners on first and third, and Boggs grounded out to bring a run home.

Hoblit reached on a dropped fly ball that scored another run, and Carole Bayse, Snipes and Katie Dickey hit back-to-back-to-back singles, with Dickey's driving in a run to cut the lead to 7-5 with the bases loaded and just one out.

But Newton recorded a double play to end the inning as a fly ball to center field was caught and a Covington base runner was picked off at second base.

Newton scored an insurance run in the top of the seventh, giving Covington just three outs to score three runs.

Which is a daunting task with Katie Stewart on the mound.

"She did a nice job of going away on us," Denlinger said. "She threw the curve and stayed outside, and we worked on that the past two days. We knew what she would present to us, but she seemed to have the upper hand on us."

And she did as Covington couldn't get any offense going in the bottom of the seventh and ended the season with an 8-5 loss.

"It's a hard way to end it for the seniors (Christian, Jessica Snipes, Jessica Shrout) especially," said Denlinger. "But we had a great season."

A season the Lady Buccs can build on for the future.

Scoring by Innings:
Newton .............1...0...2...0...3...1...1 - 8 .. 8 .. 2
Covington .........2...0...0...0...0...3...0 - 5 .. 8 .. 5