WEST MILTON – The Covington Lady Buccs traveled to West Milton amped up with plenty at stake against Milton-Union, a team who had defeated the Lady Buccs 9-8 earlier in the season.
The Lady Buccs jumped out to a fast start, which led to an 11-7 victory over the Lady Bulldogs in a game that put Covington closer to its goal of winning the league title in the Three Rivers Conference. Covington remains at the top of the league standings with a 10-1 record in the TRC with three more conference games left against Lehman Catholic, Riverside and Miami East.
The Lady Buccs opened up the game by scoring four runs, but Milton-Union scored two runs in the bottom half of the inning with a big hit coming on a home run by freshman Sofie Elliott.
Neither team could score in the second, but Covington pushed its lead to 7-2 with a run in the third and two more in the fourth. The Lady Buccs then scored four runs in the top of the sixth with three of the runs coming on a three-run home run by Mara Newhouse to push Covington’s lead to 10-2.
Milton-Union plated a run in the bottom of the sixth and Covington loaded the bases in the top of the seventh with one out, but only managed to score one run as Milton-Union made two big defensive plays to prevent further damage.
The Lady Bulldogs are a team that never quits and they put a scare in Covington in the bottom of the seventh by taking advantage of a Buccaneer error to load the bases with one out. Sophomore Mylee Jones then drilled a grand slam to give Milton life and momentum.
Fortunately the Lady Buccs were able to record the final two outs on a pop-up to Nigella Reck at short and a pop-up to Mara Newhouse behind the plate.
Overall, Covington outhit Milton-Union 13 to 9. Mara Newhouse drove in six runs and scored three runs on three hits. Meg Rogers also had three hits, walked once and scored four times, while Nigella Reck had two hits despite being intentionally walked twice. Also recording hits for Covington were Maggie Anderson, Karyanne Turner, Reaghan Lemp and Kamryn Barnes.
Meg Rogers went the distance in the circle to pick up her twelfth win of the season. Rogers struck out eight batters and walked two, while allowing nine hits.
Covington improves its overall record to 19-3 on the season and will host Lehman Catholic tomorrow (Friday) on Senior Night.
