ARCANUM – Things didn’t go well for Covington throughout six innings, but the competitive desire by the Lady Buccs was on display as they overcame a 5-0 deficit to defeat Arcanum 8-5 in nine innings.
Covington’s defense played extremely well throughout the majority of the game, but one minor miscue in the second inning gave Arcanum an advantage to open up the scoring on the scoreboard. The Lady Trojans are very talented and were able to take advantage of the error by Covington to score two runs in the bottom of second inning.
Still, The Lady Buccs never relented and put themselves in position to put runs on the board in the top of the third. Unfortunately, two controversial situations that led to three outs eliminated the Lady Buccs from scoring.
Arcanum, an aggressive hitting team, was able to push its lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth and 5-0 in the bottom of the sixth. This led Covington into a tough situation.
Fortunately, the Lady Buccs responded extremely well as they scored five runs in the top of the seventh to tie the game at 5-5.
Defensively, Covington’s senior Jayda McClure made three consecutive great plays to extend the game into extra innings and neither team was able to score in the eight inning.
Covington finally took its first lead on a great offensive hit by Ava Hartwig that scored Emma Ouellette on a slide at the plate. Moments later, Emalyn Johnson drilled a two-run home run to push the lead to 8-5.
Arcanum was able to open up the bottom of the ninth inning with a base hit, but Jayda McClure made yet another outstanding defensive play by making a great catch and drilling a throw to Taylor Foutz at first for a double play. The game ended on the next defensive play by Covington to secure the comeback victory.
Both teams played at a high level with energy and emotion, which had to make fans who sat through a cold evening enjoyable to watch this game.
Covington tallied 14 total hits throughout the game and Arcanum compiled 7 hits.
Emalyn Johnson and Taylor Foutz both went 3-fro-5 at the plate, while Ava Hartwig, Jayda McClure and Emma Ouellette connected on two hits. Plus, Cassidy Iddings and Kylie Palsgrove both connected on one critical hit each.
Covington is now 3-0 in the early point of the season and will host Northmont tomorrow.
