The Shadow
COVINGTON – Looking to keep their Valley League Baseball playoff hopes alive, Covington picked up a rare 6-2 victory over the South Division champion Charlottesville on Sunday evening at Casey Field in Covington.
The offense from the Lumberjacks attacked early and scored all six of their runs through the first four innings.
In the bottom of the first inning the TomSox were cruising after retiring the first two Jacks’ batters. The Jacks’ would then get back-to-back runners on base following a walk and hit-by-pitch. With two outs still Carlos Castillo (2-for-2) drove in the first run of the game with an RBI single. Gregory Melo (1-for-4) would follow with an infield RBI single. Meanwhile on the play, the first baseman recorded a throwing error trying to throw out Castillo at third base, which allowed Castillo to score the Jacks’ third run of the inning.
After Charlottesville got a run back in the second inning, Covington would answer an inning later in the third with two runs to take a 5-1 lead. With Melo batting, Castillo, who was on third base, scored on a wild pitch. Two batters later, Kaleb Henry (1-for-4) doubled in the team’s fifth run of the game.
The TomSox cut the deficit down to three runs in the top of the fourth inning with an RBI groundout from Sam Mummau (0-for-3). The little momentum would be short lived as the Lumberjacks got the run back to retake a four-run lead following a sacrifice fly out from Chenar Brown (0-for-2).
Making his sixth start of the season, Matthew Irwin (W/2-1) recorded his second win of the season after matching his longest start of the year. Irwin allowed two runs on two five hits, while walking one, and striking out a pair. John Vazquez (S, 1) was essentially unhittable in four shutout innings out of the bullpen. Vazquez gave up just one hit, walked three, and struck out three.
The win for Covington was only the team’s second against Charlottesville this season in eight games.
Charlottesville 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 – 2 6 3
Covington 3 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 x – 6 8 0
W – Matthew Irwin. L – Colby Wallace. S – John Vazquez.
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NOTE: Covington was eliminated from playoff contention on Tuesday night after a second tiebreaker with the Culpeper Cavaliers who clinched the third playoff spot out of the South Division. We’ll have more coverage of the final game recaps for the Lumberjacks in Tuesday’s edition as well as how they lost the tiebreaker to the Cavaliers, and you can find out more on our website virginianreview.com.
