Pride drop both ends of doubleheader at Park to close road trip

PARKVILLE, Mo. - Coming off of their first sweep in the Heart of America Athletic Conference this season, the Clarke University softball team would not fair as successful on Sunday afternoon in a pair of losses at Park University by 8-0 and 11-6 final scores.

In game one, the home team scored early and often with a pair of runs in both the bottom of the first and second innings thanks to a two-RBI double in the first and a lot of traffic on the bases in the second, allowing a bases loaded hit batter and walk to plate two more and double PU's lead to 4-0.

More slugging would benefit the Pirates as they doubled home two more to start the scoring in the four-run fourth inning as a Jordan Crooks two-run home run to left center finished the score to put the home team within the margin of a run-rule victory that they finished off in the top half of the fifth to complete Hanna Vaught's sixth win of the season on a four-hit shutout, striking out six CU batters and just walking two.

In the finale, the Pride were able to jump out to a 2-0 lead of their own in the top of the first thanks to a Lauren Hefel double that plated Harlee Makue-Vasconcellos after a throwing error in an attempt to cut her down at third, but that error allowed her to score and moved Hefel to third where Syndey Wilson drove her home on a sacrifice fly a batter later.

Unfortunately for CU, that lead wouldn't hold more than an inning when Park played more long ball in the second inning with Faith tessman and Emma Reed three-run home runs with an RBI single sandwiched in the middle to give Park a seven-run innings and put them up five runs.

There was no discouragement from the Clarke offense, as they answered with four of their own in the next half inning on a double steal, a Savannah Roberts sacrifice fly, and an Olivia Sikora two-run single to center, cutting the Pirates' lead to just one run at 7-6.

Another RBI from Tessman and Vaught, this time delivering at the plate rather than in the circle, producing a three-run home run herself to push the PU lead back up to five runs at the eventual final score of 11-6.

Hefel and Teal Transburg both finished the game 3-for-4 at the plate with Hefel finishing the day as a whole with four hits with Hannah Palzkill going 2-for-4 in game two along with Makue-Vasconcellos, Wilson, Alicia Amaya, and Sikora all producing hits in the final game of the weekend.

Clarke softball will take another trip to Missouri for their next game action on Wednesday, Mar. 25 when they get back to some non-conference action at Hannibal-LaGrange University for a scheduled 1:00 p.m. CT start to their doubleheader.