Covill, Rams win district opener 3-1

Cassidy Colby rounding third with the third Rams run

Text  and photos by Steev Riccardo

Dudley - Senior hurler Molly Covill and the seventh seeded Shepherd Hill Rams started their district run on a winning note with a 3-1 victory over the tenth seeded Algonquin Regional Tomahawks Friday (June 1) afternoon in a scrappy Division I contest played at Shepherd Hill.

The Rams wasted no time getting the party started with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning.  Cassidy Colby singled to start the game and scored on a single by Sam Miller.  Miller in turn was knocked home on a double by Marissa Colby to give the Rams a 2-0 lead.

Marissa Colby later knocked home Cassidy Colby, who had singled, a second time with a double in the third inning to make it 3-0.

Covill settled in nicely on the mound on her way to a brilliant seven-strikeout performance, scattering seven Tomahawks hits along the way.

Things did get a little scary in the top of the seventh but a heads up play by Covill saved what could have been a disaster. 

The Rams pitcher walked her only batter to start the inning and a single gave the Tomahawks runners on first and second with no outs.  The third batter bunted which moved the runners up to second and third with one out when a costly mistake by the runner on third and a quick reaction by Covill resulted in a pick-off play and a key second out in the inning.

Rams Head Coach Paul Enman described the bizarre play afterwards. “The girl was off the base, the umpire said timeout wasn’t called, Molly (Covill) was heads up and gave our shortstop the “hi” sign and got it over to our shortstop (Emily Hanson).  What I think they (Algonquin) thought was going on was that the umpire was talking to the third base coach and that was the equivalent of a time out but time was never called.” 

Covill said she just reacted, “I fielded the bunt, then after the play second baseman Emily Bagley threw the ball back to me and I just noticed the girl was off base and yelled to Hanson and I threw her the ball.”

The play happened so fast that most of the players didn’t even see it, including Stracher, “I didn’t see the play but I talked to Molly about it afterwards and she said that she saw the girl off the base and she saw Em Hanson covering third and she called her and she threw the ball to her.” The play essentially could have saved the game as Covill got the final batter to ground out.

“Molly started off real strong today with a lot of strikeouts the first time through their batting order”, said Enman. “They are a good team and they swing the bat and they play in a tough league so the second time around, they started to adjust and they started to put the bat on the ball and our position players had to step up and do more work. Molly got us through the first three innings and continued the rest of the way, keeping them off balance, throwing some change of speed stuff when necessary and our outfielders got balls that they could handle.”

Covill’s walk in the seventh was very rare as the coach pointed out, “I don’t think she has walked 10 batters all season in110 innings.”

“It didn’t really occur to me until the second to the last batter that this could be our last game,” said Covill. “I was just going out throwing and trying to get outs and I knew we were up by two. I knew if they scored one it would be OK as long as we kept them down.” 

The Rams playoff run last season ended with a tough 1-0 loss to Milford on a walk off homer in the bottom of the seventh inning, so Covill is not about to take anything for granted this time around. “There are no easy games left, every game is going to be tough; we are just going to try and score early and hope for the best. Today we got it done with the early runs.”

It didn’t hurt the Rams that they got an outstanding pitching performance from their ace pitcher either.

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