GREENVILLE – Covington showcased mental toughness and grittiness in overcoming a 5-3 deficit to defeat a highly respected program, Greenville, on Wednesday.

Recently the Lady Buccs struggled with uncharacteristic mistakes that led to back-to-back losses to Milton-Union and Russia, but the confidence never wavered. This proved vital on Wednesday against Greenville, one of the premier softball programs in the area.

Greenville jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning and Covington responded with three runs in the second, but the Green Wave took a 5-3 lead with two more runs in the second and another run in the third.

The Lady Buccs settled in defensively and held Greenville to just one run the rest of the way – a run in the sixth.

Covington tied the score at 5-5 with two runs in the fifth and then took a 6-5 lead with another run in the top of the sixth. Greenville responded with a run in the bottom of the sixth, but the Lady Buccs scored another run in the top of the seventh to take a 7-6 lead and held the Green Wave in check in the bottom half of the inning to preserve the thrilling victory.

The Lady Buccs tallied eight hits in the contest with Reaghan Lemp leading the way by going 3-for-4 with an RBI and scoring two runs. Mara Newhouse scored twice after a hit and being walked, while Nigella Reck, Meg Rogers and Kamryn Barnes all connected on a hit and scored a run.

Meg Rogers picked up the win in the circle as she went all seven innings. Rogers struck out 3, walked 4 and allowed 10 hits and 4 earned runs. The two other runs put up by Greenville came from two errors by the Lady Buccs.

Greenville had 10 hits and three errors.

The Lady Buccs improve to 8-2 on the season and host Miami East tomorrow (Thursday) in a critical TRC matchup between two teams who shared the league title a year ago.