Covina High School’s baseball team has lived in the shadow of rival Northview in recent years.
Tuesday the Colts emerged from darkness.
Nick Simons hit a home run and drove in four runs and Nick Hynes had three RBIs and Covina routed their intra-city rivals, 13-0 in a Valle Vista League game that was halted after five innings due to the 10-run rule.
Covina, also getting a one-hitter from James Comarotto, improved to 5-3 overall and 1-0 in league play. Northview slipped to 4-4 and 0-2.
Covina coach Pete Loaiza: “I think it’s important to keep things in perspective. This is just one game. We just happened to open up with Northview. But our goal is not to beat Northview, it is, but our goals are bigger than just one game.”
Northview coach Darren Murphy: “It was an emotional game, a rivalry game. One team showed up and one team didn’t. I can’t say more than that. We put a lot of guys on base with free passes, but to (Covina’s) credit, we left the door open and they slammed it shut.”