The mistakes and runs kept piling on Community R-6 on Saturday.
The Lady Trojans lost both games of a home softball triangular 11-0 in six innings to Clopton and 15-8 to Marceline. Community had five errors against Clopton (4-1) and four errors against Marceline (5-1).
Head coach Kendra Murphy said Community (3-2) fought back better with nine hits against Marceline, but those eight runs were still not close to enough because of "pitiful" defense. The Lady Trojans allowed at least lazy fly balls or soft liners to drop into the shallow outfield and had several more catchable balls drop to amount to 20 Marceline hits.
"If you score eight runs in a game, you should be winning," Murphy said. "Myla (Carroll) pitched well. There was nothing wrong with how Myla threw. Everything was dropping, and we weren't adjusting to the sun or adjusting to the wind. We were just sitting there and waiting on somebody else to catch it when the wind was pushing it to not that person."
Community's offense started lending more support in the fourth inning with three runs in that inning and another three runs in the fifth inning to avoid an early 10-run-rule loss. Chloe Johnson went 2-for-4 with two RBI, Jocelyn Curtis was 2-for-4 with three runs scored and a RBI, and Amy McCurdy finished 2-for-3 with two runs scored and a RBI triple.
"At the plate, we got a little more disciplined and started swinging at pitches we can hit and attacking early rather than waiting so long to swing," Murphy said. "On defense, the ball was going to different people than it was early in the game, and those people stepped up and made the plays."
Community opens its Central Activities Conference schedule with games on back-to-back days, starting with 5 p.m. Monday at home against Glasgow (3-0) and 5 p.m. Tuesday at Pilot Grove (1-2). Murphy said the Lady Trojans have at least an error in every game but are fine when they don't let the mistakes snowball.
"In the first game (against Clopton), we just kept bleeding errors," Murphy said. "It was error after error after error after error. The biggest difference is we didn't keep bleeding errors. We made an error and then turned around around and adjusted to it or made a play after that."
