Lake Closing

By TJ MAXWELL

Cove Leader-Press

The Copperas Cove Bulldawgs baseball team rolled into District 12-6A play on a win-streak. The Dawgs won five of their last six non-district contests and opened up district play with a 4-0 shutout over the Killeen Kangaroos Tuesday afternoon in Cove. Senior pitcher Conner Lake pitched a complete-game shutout in a one-hitter against the Roos. He walked three of his first four batters faced and gave up the only hit of the night on a two-out single to short to allow the bases to get loaded. Lake took control after that. He allowed three more walks in the contest but was able to get out of every sticky situation, striking out 10 batters en route. “I thought he competed and that was the biggest thing about it,” said Bulldawgs’ head coach Dusty Brittain. “He had a few walks, but he backed those walks up with some huge strikeouts to get himself out of jams. I told him, ‘We’re going to make some mistakes here and there and you’re going to make some mistakes, but it’s how you compose yourself on the mound and how you come back and attack that next batter.’ I couldn’t be more pleased with the way he threw the ball today.” Lake (1-1) struck out seven of the last 15 batters he faced on the way to his first win of the season from the mound. “I felt really great going in there at the end,” said Lake. “I knew the team had the lead for me and I knew that I was feeling good. I went out there with a lot of confidence. I just wanted to go throw strikes and I was able to end it with the win and the complete-game shutout. It feels awesome.” Brittain didn’t want to take the complete-game away from Lake and he was rewarded for it. Lake fanned two of his last three opponents to close out the contest. “There was no way I was putting anybody else in to start that last inning the way he was amped up and ready to go,” said Brittain. Lake didn’t do it alone, however. He needed some run support and Michael Hays was glad to oblige. The junior turned on a high inside fastball in the bottom of the fourth inning and cranked it over the left field fence just inside the foul pole to break a scoreless deadlock. That solo shot would prove to be all Lake needed to secure the win. “When he knocked that one, I knew that was getting us fired up for sure,” said Lake. “It was awesome. I was proud for him.” Hays just wanted to make something happen. “We were quiet the whole game,” said Hays. “The bats weren’t really hot. My approach when I went up there was just to try to start something and put something in play hard somewhere. He came in with the first pitch, a high inside fastball, and I just swung on it and drove over the left field wall.” Brittain knew how important that home run was. “I thought Michael Hays’ home run really got us going,” he said. “It sparked a big rally. We really should have came up with more runs in that inning, but that got us up in the dugout and from there is was kind of a trickle effect. We were able to manufacture a couple runs there late.” Senior Tristan Marez knocked another run home in the bottom of the fifth inning. His hard-hit shot to short scored freshman Cameron Johnson. Johnson reached on a walk, was batted to second on a single by Terrance Chamberlin before being knocked home by Marez. Cove added two more insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Freshman Tyler Ingram led off the inning with a single to shallow center. After advancing to second on a walk by Jeremi Hawkins and advancing to third on a passed ball, courtesy runner, Kaleb Borders, was knocked home on a sacrifice fly by senior Adrian Oviedo. The Dawgs plated their final run when Tim Bechtold scored on a fielding error off the bat of junior Neeko Kirk. Killeen hurler Chris Barber suffered the loss on the mound for the Roos, despite giving up just two earned runs and fanning four. “Barber kept us off balance,” said Brittain. “We hit the ball hard a couple times but we just couldn’t really come through with that big hit. We had a couple hard line drives to end innings that we could have scored in. We’ll take one any way we can get it at this point.” Hays (1-for-2, HR, R, RBI, BB) led the Cove bats. Chamberlin (1-for-2), Hawkins (1-for-2), Marez (1-for-3) and Ingram (1-for- 3) accounted for the other four Cove hits. Borders and Bechtold each added a run each and Johnson drew three walks. Brittain likes the way his team won. “It feels good,” he said. “‘I told those guys, ‘we’ve got to be able to do the little things to be able to beat teams like Killeen. If we can go out there and get a win today, then it gives us a little momentum going into Belton.’ Brittain hopes that momentum transfers when the Dawgs travel to Belton to take on the Tigers tonight at 7 p.m. “Belton is the defending champion a couple years running and we’ve got to go in there and attack them with confidence,” said Brittain. “We have to have the mindset that we can play with anybody and I believe these kids have that mindset and the win over Killeen is going to help us build on that.”