The Shadow
LURAY – The Covington Lumberjacks are one game from elimination.
Tucker Jensen gave up just a single run over seven innings, picking up his fifth mound win of the season here Tuesday, pitching Luray to a 3-1 win over the Jacks in Game 1 of a Valley Baseball League quarterfinal playoff series.
The Lumberjacks will try to extend the best-of-3 series tonight at 7 p.m. at Casey Field.
Jensen, out of Embry-Riddle University in Daytona Beach, scattered five hits over seven innings and struck out eight to post the mound victory for the Wranglers, the No. 2 seed in the playoffs.
Benny Mejia (Seton Hall) hurled a complete game for Covington, allowing only five hits and two earned runs.
Luray scored twice in the second and added an insurance run in the home half of the eighth on a Joel Capote (Florida International) solo home run.
Capote paced the winners with three hits.
Isaac Wenrich’s (Franklin-Pierce) RBI single in the seventh produced the only run for the Lumberjacks.
The Jacks left two runners on in both the eighth and ninth innings.
Wenrich joined Michael Garcia (Eastern Kentucky) with two hits apiece for Covington, who outhit their opponents 7-5.
A win tonight by the Lumberjacks would force a deciding Game 3 on Thursday at Luray.
Around the VBL
Only one lower-seeded team scored a game one victory Tuesday night.
Harrisonburg, the playoffs’ No. 6 seed, hit five home runs, two coming from Shaun Cooper (Arizona), his league-leading 12th and 13th of the year, in an 8-4 win over No. 3 Winchester.
No. 1 Haymarket, the defending VBL champions, topped No. 8 New Market, 6-2, while No. 4 Front Royal downed No. 5 Waynesboro, 6-2.
