S: CHEW, FALCONS WIN DUEL WITH TROJANS

COVINGTON, Ind. — For the second time in a week, the North Vermilion and Covington softball teams needed extra innings to settle the score.

But in a stark contrast to their meeting on April 11 (won 9-8 by the Falcons in 9 innings), Friday’s game was a pitching duel as both the Falcons’ Hannah Chew and the Trojans’ Chandler Huber went the distance.

Chew would ultimately settle things in the top of the 8th with her bat — driving in the only two runs of the game to give the Falcons a hard fought 2-0 victory in 8 innings.

“We have been playing games like that all year,” said North Vermillion coach Mike Davis. “We hang in there and then execute when we need to in order to get the win. I thought we played well and are getting better as a team.”

Chew struck out nine without a walk and surrendered only three hits for the Falcons who move to 7-3 on the season and 5-2 in WRC play.

“I thought Hannah did a really good job of working the count and staying ahead of the hitters,” Davis said. “Overall, she did a really good job of staying in control.”

The Trojans in fact never seriously threatened Chew the entire game.

“I was very disappointed in our hitting today,” said Covington coach Tiffany Mosson. “We had 10 hits off of her last Friday and only three today. We didn’t do a good job of making contact and we seemed to lose some confidence as the game went on.”

The Falcons would load the bases in the third, but failed to score when a drive to center off the bat of Miranda Nichols was caught by Whitney Allen. The Falcons would load the bases again in the top of the sixth. Bethany Chew hit a fly to left that was caught by Erin Baker. Hailey Aukerman tagged from third on the play, but Baker threw out Aukerman to keep the game scoreless.

North Vermillion’s Jessie Astin led off the eighth with a deep fly to left that kicked off the glove of Baker allowing Astin to make it to second.

Aukerman would walk and Derryn Axtell put down a bunt, forcing a play at third that Astin was able to beat to load the bases with no outs.

Huber would strike out the next two batters before Hannah Chew singled to center scoring Astin and Aukerman. Hannah Chew would go 3 for 4 and was on base four times.

“This was a good win for us in the conference,” Davis said. “The defense made a lot of plays today and until we get the bats going, we are going to have to win on pitching and defense.

“We faced one of the harder throwing pitchers around in our last game against Seeger and I think that threw our timing off some today, but I felt we still did a good job adjusting as the game went on. We are a very young team and we are taking one game at a time.”

Next up for the Falcons is Salt Fork on Tuesday.

Mosson summed up her teams’ day in one word.

“Disappointing,” she said. “We wanted this one pretty bad but I guess not quite bad enough as we weren’t aggressive enough to get a win. I was really happy with Chandlers pitching. It was her first complete game and she got 10 strikeouts. It was a great effort by her.

“You have to give credit to North Vermilion. They have been playing well and played well today. We have an immediate chance to get to.500, and that’s our next goal.”

The Trojans are 4-6 overall and 1-3 in the Wabash River Conference have a doubleheader today against Fountain Central.