WAPAKONETA – The Covington Lady Buccs put together another outstanding season, but it ended in the regional semi-final in a narrow 3-1 loss to New Riegel.
There have been so many great seasons in the sport of softball for Covington and this year ranks up with so many of the best as this group of outstanding players compiled a 24-7 record and captured the program’s 13th district championship.
Plus, the Lady Buccs put together so many school and state records throughout the year. The tied state records were accomplished by Jayda McClure and Emalyn Johnson with two home runs in one inning, Emalyn Johnson with four home runs in a game and also four consecutive home runs compiled by Karlee Schwartz, Ava Hartwig, Jayda McClure and Emalyn Johnson.
Emalyn Johnson set the program record with 19 home runs in the season and 34 home runs in a career. She is a junior, which gives her one more season to increase her totals. Also, the entire team set the school record with 58 home runs in the season.
In the final game of the season on Wednesday, the Lady Buccs played so hard against a very talented team – New Riegel.
Covington opened up the game by scoring a run in the first inning as Emalyn Johnson drew a walk and then Taylor Foutz drilled a double that pushed Johnson through three bases for the opening score.
The Lady Buccs continued to pound the ball very hard throughout the rest of the game, but the distance in the field eliminated four potential home runs that would have cleared the fence in most of the fields played throughout the year.
New Riegel was able to score a run in the bottom of the third to tie the game and then scored two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The Lady Buccs had two runners on second and third base with one out in the top of the sixth, but were not able to take advantage of the opportunity due to a ground ball to the pitcher and then another ground ball to the shortstop.
Trailing 3-1, the Lady Buccs had the bases loaded in the top of the seventh inning with another opportunity to retake the lead, but New Riegel made the play needed to end the threat and closed out the game. New Riegel’s pitcher was phenomenal as she was able to prevent the Lady Buccs from scoring in critical opportunities.
Overall, the Lady Buccs played well in all phases of the game in an unfortunate loss. The standout for Covington was pitcher Whitney Burns. She threw very well throughout the entire game as she only allowed seven hits and also struck out five batters.
This loss against another talented team didn’t diminish how well the Lady Buccs played in their final game of a great season. The five seniors – Taylor Foutz, Whitney Burns, Jayda McClure, Nell Rogers and Emma Ouellette are very memorable softball players for the residents in the Covington community.
