COVINGTON – Covington overcame a self destructive performance on Wednesday by holding on for a 6-5 victory over Newton in the sectional final.
The Lady Buccs will play either Fort Loramie or Triad at 5:00pm on Friday at Versailles in the district final.
For Covington to have a chance at winning a district championship, it will need a much better performance than what was displayed against Newton. The Lady Buccs made so many uncharacteristic mistakes that nearly cost them to keep the season alive.
Fortunately, the Lady Buccs did make some big plays down the stretch to escape with the one-point victory.
Newton started off with a two-run home run in the top of the first and Covington scored a run on an RBI single by Kamryn Barnes that scored Karyanne Turner to cut the deficit to 2-1.
Neither team scored in the second and Newton took a 3-1 lead in the top of the third on a passed ball.
Covington tied the game at 3-3 with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. Emalyn Johnson drove in a run on a double and Stevi Newhouse drove in a run on a single in the gap.
Newton followed up with back-to-back solo home runs in the top of the fifth to retake a 5-3 lead, but Covington was able to finally put together a solid inning in the bottom of the fifth.
Taylor Foutz drove in a two-run double that scored Karyanne Turner and Kamryn Barnes and then Emalyn Johnson followed with a double that drove in Foutz to give the Lady Buccs a 6-5 lead.
Covington was able to hold Newton in check in its final two at bats to preserve the victory.
The Lady Buccs tallied 10 hits in the contest, but had many more opportunities for more hits if it wasn’t for so many fly balls that were put up for Newton to catch.
Karyanne Turner and Emalyn Johnson had two hits each, while the other hits were made by Jayda McClure, Ava Hartwig, Kamryn Barnes, Taylor Foutz, Elizabeth Coblentz and Stevi Newhouse.
Covington only committed one error on defense, but had a few miscues on defensive positioning that led to Newton getting additional runners on base.
Karyanne Turner went the distance in the circle to pick up the win. She struck out four, walk one and allowed nine hits.
Covington improves its record to 21-7 with a district final coming up on Friday, while Newton finishes with a 10-15 record..
