The Shadow
The Winchester Royals came to Casey Field averaging 13 runs a night over their last four games.
They left Wednesday night with a zero.
Calyb King (West Virginia Tech) pitched six innings of no-hit baseball, while Carson Werrmann (Centre), Tyler Wilburn (Jacksonville State) and Derek Tremblay (VMI) pitched a shutout frame apiece in the Covington Lumberjacks 5-0 victory over the Royals.
Winchester managed just two hits in the game — a Jimmy Goldsmith (Radford) two-out single in the seventh and a Noah Heisler (VCU) leadoff pinch-hit knock in the ninth.
King, who was 7-1 at Tech in the spring, moved to 2-0 with the Jacks, allowing just three base runners — all walks.
“I came out and I didn’t think I was going to have the control on my curveball or any off-speed really,” King said. “So I worked with fastball a little bit and then maybe third inning got it going a little bit more and things just fell my way.”
King will be a junior at West Virginia Tech where he is coached by Lumberjack skipper Alex Kotheimer and pitching coach Greg Stagani.
“It really helps pitching with these coaches,” King added.
For the Jacks it was another quality start from the staff.
“He’s been a player for us all year,” Stagani said of King. “Late in the year when he was getting back-to-back starts he just went out and grinded for us.
“All the credit in the world goes to Alex and these guys for getting all these pitchers down here for us to work with,” he added. “These quality starts, it puts our bullpen in a good spot to not go out and get burned every night.”
The Lumberjacks got all the runs they would need in the home half of the first.
Christian Torres (UMBC) rapped a two-run triple and scored on Matthew Cocciadiferro’s (New Jersey Tech) sacrifice fly.
They added two more runs in the sixth on a Logan Amiss (VCU) RBI double and another sac fly, this one off the bat of Austin Davis (Flagler).
Joe Fortin (Rhode Island) joined Cocciadiferro with two hits apiece for Covington, while Torres scored twice.
The Lumberjacks’ defense turned three doubleplays and didn’t commit an error.
Covington (6-3), tied for second in the tight Valley League Baseball Southern Division goes to Woodstock tonight before returning to Casey Field on Friday to face Harrisonburg.
Rooklin Has Big Night In Staunton’s Tuesday Win
Kent Rooklin (West Virginia Tech) played a huge part in beating his old team on Tuesday night in Staunton.
The Alleghany High School graduate and Lumberjack last summer, went 4-for-5 with two runs scored and two RBI for the Braves in a 12-3 win over the Lumberjacks.
Rooklin, who played shortstop on Thursday, upped his batting average to .345 in seven games with the Braves.
Andrew Czech (Walsh) had two doubles and drove in five runs for Staunton, while Casey Haire (High Point) joined Rooklin with four hits.
Staunton scored 12 unanswered runs after Amiss gave Covington a 3-0 lead in the top of the first with a long three-run homer to straightaway center field.
Ryan McCarty (Penn State-Abingdon) earned the mound win for the Braves, allowing just those three runs over six innings.
Wil Freeman (Alabama) started and went three innings in his Lumberjack debut.
Grant Verpillat (New Jersey Tech) was tagged with the loss, allowing four runs over two innings.
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Covington’s Logan Amiss (VCU) slides into third as Winchester’s Trevor Hafner (Ohio U.) receives the throw Wednesday night at Casey Field. (Gavin Dressler Photo)
