Clawson Softball Drops Doubleheader to Royal Oak

ROYAL OAK – The more experienced Royal Oak varsity softball team didn’t waste any time sweeping a doubleheader over Clawson on Tuesday.

The Ravens won the first game 15-0 in just four innings and won the second 15-5 in five innings. Alex Tekip pitched a perfect game in the opener, striking out 10. She faced the minimum amount of batters through four innings and only two Trojans even put the ball in play. 

Clawson starts three freshmen and only returned two starters from last season. The inexperienced group is struggling while gaining some necessary experience this year.

“Obviously the scoreboard doesn’t really matter,” Clawson coach Ray McMann said.

Royal Oak (8-3) used its second and third starting pitchers in the doubleheader and coach Terry Powers started most of his bench.

“We got to play girls we normally don’t play a lot, that was good,” Powers said. “Our pitcher in the second game hasn’t pitched at all this year and that was promising to see what she could do for us.”

In her pitching debut, Sam Steels won the second game. She allowed five runs, but two of them were unearned. She struck out eight batters and only walked one.

Both Steels and Tekip consistently threw first pitch strikes and made Clawson (0-10) hitters work from behind in the count. And while the Trojans had some nice swings in the second game, they couldn’t quite figure Tekip out.

“She’s been my second pitcher throughout the season and she’s done real well,” Powers said. “She’s more of a control pitcher than a strikeout pitcher, but she did real well today.”

Freshman Kayla Morrison pitched for Clawson in the first game and had to face the entire Royal Oak batting order in three different innings. The Ravens hitters were locked in and every hitter reached base at least once.

Royal Oak finished game one with 17 hits. Kendail Clarey was 3 for 4 with three RBIs and leadoff hitter Alex Bleeker reached base in all four innings. She was 4 for 4 with three RBIs and three runs.

In the second game, the Trojans used three different starters and all of them struggled to keep Royal Oak off the base paths. The pitchers walked nine batters across four innings and allowed 13 hits.

“We’ve been hitting real well this season, that keeps us in a lot of games, in past years we’ve had a harder time hitting, but we’ve had a good defense,” Powers said. “This year we’re hitting a little better than we had in the past.”

Haily Cubler drew three walks and scored four times in game two. Faith Sulich was the only Ravens hitter in the first game without a hit, but she was 2 for 3 in the second game with four RBIs and three runs.

In both games, fielding miscues helped Royal Oak pad its lead. The one thing McMann wants his team to improve on every game is their execution in the field.

“We’re really looking to just get rid of the errors,” McMann said. “First game they scored 15 runs, only six were earned. We need to get rid of errors, make the little plays we need to make. Even if we cut our errors in half we’ll be in much better shape.”

Clawson has two home games to round out the week. They play East Detroit on Thursday (4 p.m.) and Port Huron on Friday (4:30 p.m.).

Royal Oak has a pair of doubleheaders left this week at home. They play Harrison in a pair of Oakland Activities Association Blue games tomorrow (4 p.m. and 6 p.m.) and then they host Lamphere on Friday (4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.).