Covenant wins in VIC showdown

By Bart Isley

Published: May 2, 2008

Sam Beale is happy with the results of his work with Covenant freshman Sean Rutherford. Beale’s just wishing the young hurler’s success didn’t have to come against his own Miller squad.
“I’m thinking to myself - I’m just getting killed by this kid,” Beale said. “He kept our bats out of the game.”
Rutherford worked five innings against the Mavericks and surrendered just two earned runs while striking out six to help lift Covenant to a critical 6-2 road victory over Miller Thursday afternoon.
Beale and his son, Justin, work with Rutherford in Total Performance’s baseball development program, but Covenant coach Doug Smethurst reaped the rewards of the poised young pitcher’s play Thursday.
“He bends but he doesn’t break,” Smethurst said. “He keeps making tough pitches so it’s hard to string a lot together against him.”
The Eagles’ win creates a deadlock at the top of the Virginia Independent Conference standings between Miller and Covenant, who both stand at 6-1.
If Miller (11-4, 6-1 VIC) and Covenant (11-7, 6-1) both can knock off Virginia Episcopal in the next few days, a coin flip will break the tie atop the conference for next week’s VIC tournament.
Rutherford’s performance overshadowed a solid outing by Miller senior Hunter Bacot, who struck out nine over his 6.1 innings. He stayed on top of the Covenant lineup despite a number of errors behind him that helped the Eagles’ offense.
“We beat ourselves,” Beale said. “We’ve lost four games this season and three of them were because we kicked the ball around. We didn’t make the plays we needed to make.”
Covenant jumped out to a two-run lead with some opportunistic baserunning, in the first two innings that set up an RBI single by J.R. Kuhn and an RBI groundout by Tyler Sawyer. Miller evened the game though when John-Mikel Whalen cranked a home run to right field in the bottom of the third.
Still, Miller’s spotty defense caught up to it in the later stages of the contest, when a passed ball allowed Zach Wardell to score, giving the Eagles a 3-2 lead. Covenant added some insurance runs with smart baserunning and some timely hitting in the top of the seventh.
As Covenant built the lead, Rutherford (3-0) held Miller in check. In the fifth, he retired the heart of the Mavericks’ order with a pair of strikeouts and a fly out. After that, senior Taylor Morris came on in relief and prevented any Miller rally by allowing just one hit and striking out two.
“He was outstanding,” Smethurst said. “He got his curve over and when he gets his slow stuff over, he’s tough.”