Dawgs defeat Knights 6-5

By BEN PETET 

Cove Leader-Press 

The Copperas Cove baseball team rallied back against Harker Heights Friday night in an important 12-6a district game. The Dawgs came back from a 5-3 deficit to take a 6-5 win over the Knights to improve to 4-2 in district play. With the loss, the Knights fell to 4-2 in district and into a tie with the Dawgs for 3rd place.

Blaine Butler started the game on the mound for the Dawgs and gave up a run on a SAC fly by Tanner Wells to plate Easton Culp. Butler was not feeling comfortable on the mound, so David Cimmino came in to relieve Butler with 2 outs and runners on the corners. 

Cimmino got Tyler Halvorsen to ground back to himself and he made the easy throw to 1st base to retire the side. Cimmino led off the home half of the 1st inning with a single to left field and went to 2nd base on a walk by Travis Sanders. 

Both Cimmino and Sanders moved up a base on a wild pitch, then Cimmino scored on a SAC fly by Caden Harris. With two outs, Butler drew a walk and a passed ball allowed Sanders to go to 3rd and Butler to 2nd. Manuel Chaco hit a RBI single to right field to plate Sanders and give the Dawgs a 2-1 lead after 1 inning.

After Cimmino had a 1-2-3 2nd inning with 3 strikeouts, Cody Lingo had a one-out walk. 

Cimmino then smashed a hit down the 3rd base line for a RBI double that scored Lingo increasing the lead to 3-1 after 2 innings.

The Knights batted a round in the top of the 3rd inning, taking a 5-3 lead. The Dawgs could not push a run across in the home half of the 3rd inning, keeping the score 5-3 for the Knights.

In the top of the 4th inning, Cimmino pitched another 1-2-3 inning to keep the score 5-3. In the home half of the 4th Cimmino had a leadoff walk, moved to 2nd base on a passed ball and scored on a RBI single by Caden Harris to make the score 5-4 Knights after 4 innings.

Neither team could score in the 5th inning. Cimmino started the 6th inning with 2 strikeouts but Jeff Millisap hit a ground rule double to put a runner in scoring position for the Knights. Cimmino got Joseph Marin to fly out to Harris in right field to end the threat. In the home half of the 6th inning Cimmino had a one-out single and moved to 2nd base on a Sanders walk. 

With two outs, Gabe Chapman hit a single to shallow center field. The Knights center fielder Alejandro Ramirez's throw to the plate was too late to get Cimmino out and allowed Sanders to move to 3rd base on the throw. Chapman saw that the throw was too high for the Knights infielder to cut it off so he rounded 1st and headed to 2nd base. Chapman just did beat the throw to 2nd base and was safe there. Sanders, watching the throw to 2nd base, broke for home to score the go ahead run as nobody was covering home plate. The 6th inning ended with the Dawgs ahead 6-5 going into the 7th inning.

Sanders came on to pitch the top of the 7th inning and had a 1-2-3 inning to get the save.

After the game Coach Carrillo had this to say about the Dawgs. 

"I'm very proud of the team, they kept playing for 7 innings, 21 outs. The teams that go far keep the mistakes down and continue to play. This was a rivery game and a very emotional game but the players didn't get caught up in all of the swings of the game and came through with the win."

Tuesday night, Cove is at Temple and Bryan is at Harker Heights to close out the first half of district play.