The Shadow
The rematch between the Bath County and Covington baseball teams was not nearly eventful as the first.
The game ended in regulation and did not take three hours to play.
But Adam Simmons did go yard.
The Cougars were already in control by that point as they remained unbeaten in Pioneer District play with an 11-5 win Wednesday at Casey Field.
“We weren’t fundamentally sound in the early going,” said Covington coach Mick Strand. “But we pulled it together and was able to pull out a win. Cody Pritt did an excellent job of coming on in relief and shutting them down.”
An excellent job at that.
Pritt came in to pitch in the top of the fourth inning with the game tied 4-4.
The CHS junior limited the Chargers to just two hits and a run the rest of the way, while striking out five and walking one batter.
Bath County’s Eric Gentry suffered the loss on the mound after surrendering nine runs (five earned) over five innings. Gentry struck out four, walked three and hit three batters.
Bath grabbed an early 1-0 lead off Covington starter Preston Waddell in the top of the first.
Gentry stroked a one-out double and Waddell walked the next two batters he faced to load the bags. J.M. Harvey then slapped a run-scoring single to give the Chargers an early 1-0 lead.
The Cougars responded with two in the bottom half of the inning.
Michael Myers and Simmons put together back-to-back singles and Waddell helped his cause with a two-run double to put the Cougars on top, 2-1, after an inning.
Bath County jumped back on top in the second.
Chris Nichols was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Gentry reached on an infield single with two outs. Derek Brinkley followed with a two-RBI triple to make the score 3-2 Chargers.
Bath pushed their lead to 4-2 in the third when Tyler Deeds reached on an error and moved to third on a passed ball. He came across to score on Nichols’ squeeze bunt.
The Cougars rebounded to knot things up in the bottom half of the inning.
Shawn Perkins reached on an infield hit and Michael Myesr reached on an error. Both would score after a BC fielding error to knot the score at four.
That would be as close as Bath County would get as the Cougars erupted for four runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Zack Humphries was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and Aaron Fertig reached on error that allowed Humphries to score.
Chad Lipes coaxed a walk to put two on and Perkins followed with a two-run single. Another BC error allowed Perkins to score and give the Cougars an 8-2 lead.
The Cougars tacked on three more runs in the sixth.
Gentry hit lead off batter Matthew Myers and was relieved by Nichols.
Nichols gave up an RBI double to Michael Myers and Simmons followed with a two-run blast to straight-away center field to give Covington an 11-4 lead.
The Chargers got a single run in the seventh off of Pritt, but the lead was too much to overcome as Covington won 11-5 to improve to 2-0 in district play.
“We just didn’t make the plays we needed to in order to win the game,” said BC coach Chase Davidson. “They (Covington) took advantage of our errors and made us pay for them by putting runs on the board. That’s what good baseball teams do.”
“We’re playing solid baseball right now,” added Strand. “We need to have a solid practice tomorrow and cap off a good week with a win tomorrow at Craig County.”
Perkins, Michael Myers and Simmons led the Cougars at the plate with two hits and two RBI apiece.
Gentry led the Chargers at the plate with a 2-for-4 day.
Bath County (3-8, 1-2 Pioneer) will be back in action Friday when they host Parry McCluer.
Covington (7-2, 2-0) is back in action Friday when they travel to Craig County.
