No. 1 Clippers roll in Wamac showdown

OXFORD -- Tara Walls walked off the diamond, two circular stickers on her fingers.

"(The yellow one) was for a rundown that I got into," Walls said. "(The purple one) is an offensive dot."

Both dots had smiley faces on them. Pretty indicative of her team's mood.

Class 3A top-ranked Clear Creek Amana continued its early-season offensive onslaught, poking three home runs and thumping No. 7 Mount Vernon, 12-1, in a five-inning Wamac Conference interdivisional softball game Thursday night at McAreavy Field.

"They can hit," understated Mount Vernon Coach Gary Stamp. "They can play."

The Clippers (8-0 overall, 4-0 Wamac) have racked up 112 runs in eight games. That's easy math -- 14 runs per game.

"You know I'm not a stat guy, but we're really hitting the ball well right now," said CCA Coach Jim White. "We've had a lot of extra-base hits so far this season."

There isn't any room to breathe against this order. No. 9 batter, Jazmyne Neely, hit two home runs in a game recently.

As for Thursday, Mara Jones went deep for a solo shot in the third inning, then Caitlin Wnek and Walls clubbed two-run shots in the fourth.

That made it 12-1 and made a potentially late game end early. The contest started at 8:30 p.m., due partially because of rain earlier in the day.

White handed out numerous smiley-face stickers afterward.

"We do all sorts of practice stickers," he said. "Some of the girls put them on their visors. Some of them put them in their journals. They love that."

Mount Vernon (6-1, 3-1) got two hits and a walk in the top of the first, but a double play got the Clippers out of trouble. CCA scored three times in the bottom of the first, then added four unearned tallies in the second to extend the margin to 7-1.

Walls was 3-for-3 with four RBIs.

AT OXFORD

Mount Vernon             010 00 --   1  6  2

Clear Creek Amana   341 4x -- 12  9  2

Jenna Pisarik (L) and Micah Wieditz. Maliah Fligg (W), Mariah McKinnon (5) and Cassie Downes. HR -- CCA: Mara Jones, Caitlin Wnek, Tara Walls.