The Westchester Wildcats Depose the Burlington Christian Royals
On Tuesday, Burlington Christian Academy traveled to Westchester Country Day School (1–1, 0–0) to take on the Wildcats. The Wildcats dominated Burlington 17–3 in a game that ended after five innings.
Eighth grader Jesse Covington made his first start as a member of varsity and added a quality start as well. Covington only gave up two runs on three hits and one walk while striking out four batters. Covington said after the game, “It felt really good to be able to pitch in the home opener and it felt really good to get our first win of the season.” Covington was relieved by another eighth grader, Ashton Pittman, who kept the Wildcats steadily in front of Burlington. Senior Tate Vogler, earned the save with two strikeouts in his first appearance of the season as pitcher.
Following a scoreless first inning, Burlington Christian got out to a 2–0 lead in the top of the second, but Westchester broke open the bank in the second and third innings, scoring 13 unanswered runs to pull ahead 13–2. Vogler had a huge offensive explosion scoring three runs and bringing in two more runs and Sophomore Crawford Elrod hit a 350 foot home run to put the dagger in the game. Elrod said the way to keep the team’s momentum would be “to keep the team pumped up and keeping good swings and getting our work in everyday.” While Vogler said “We have to know what it feels like to win and you have to keep that, but if you lose that feeling goes away. Whatever it takes to keep winning and doing it like we’ve been in practice, the energy will be good, the chemistry will be good and we’ll just win even more.”
The Wildcats were shutout last week at Wayne Country Day, but Tuesday was an offensive explosion. Vogler said “For the first time tonight and even in practices it was the first time we played for each other. Part of being a team is picking up people and playing to win as a team and not to win as an individual and that was the first time we actually meshed.” Westchester will look to keep playing as a team as they head into a tough matchup at Village Christian on Friday.
