APRIL 8, 2010 - COVINGTON
The Covington Lady Buccs recorded their third straight shutout with a 3-0 victory over Minster on Thursday. And it was also the third straight game a Covington pitcher went the distance.

Chloe Shell threw all seven innings, striking out eight batters and only allowing four hits in the contest.

"Chloe (Shell) had good control of her pitches," said Covington coach Dean Denlinger. "We had her throw a lot of drop balls and she did a very nice job with her location. It was another nice night on the mound for us."

In a contest that was moved from Minster to Covington due to the condition of Minster's field, the Lady Buccs were the visiting team on the scoreboard.

But Covington started with the hot bats as Sarah Westfall singled to drive in the first run of the game in the top of the first inning.

After a scoreless second inning, the Lady Buccs put two more runs on the board on a Shelby Hoblit two-run single. This pushed the margin to 3-0 in Covington's favor.

But the well ran dry for the Lady Buccs as Minster's pitcher shut down the Covington lineup the rest of the way.

"We just aren't able to put it together at the plate," Denlinger said. "Their pitcher threw hard, but we've seen that before. We hit the ball hard at times, only we hit it right to them."

Fortunately, Covington had Shell and the defense to lean on as both aspects of the game were solid once again. This was evident by the performance of Sarah Westfall behind the plate as she threw out two Minster runners in the contest.

"Sarah had a couple of nice throws to pick off runners," said Denlinger. "We did make a couple of mistakes in the field, but the girls did a nice job of bouncing back quickly."

The victory improves Covington to 7-1 on the season and sets up a huge Cross County Conference showdown with Miami East tomorrow at Duke Park in Troy.

"That's going to be a nice showdown between two good softball teams," said Denlinger. "We split with them last year. They beat us at our place and we beat them there, so this is going to be a good game. They have a nice team, that's for sure."

SCORING BY INNINGS:
Covington .........1...0...2...0...0...0...0 - 3 .. 4 .. 2
Minster ..............0...0...0...0...0...0...0 - 0 .. 4 .. 1