Suffering their second loss of the season, the junior high girls fell 9-7 to host Nicollet on Thursday.
While they kept enough traffic on the base paths to bring home with a W, and Blair Voit was solid in the circle, errors plagued the Clippers all night.
“We made silly mistakes, and they got in our head” said Harley Connor, who, along with Kaylee Karels, coaches the Clippers.
With the Clippers trying to work their way back from a 9-5 deficit in the bottom of the seventh, Voit cracked a one-out double and scored when Harley Samuelson bashed her second triple of the night.
Samuelson crossed the plate when Bella Baker looped a sacrifice fly near the left field line to pull the Clippers within two, but the game ended on a ground out.
The Clippers got off to a good start with two runs in the top of the first after Voit cracked a double, Samuelson hit a triple and Lily McMillen singled.
But the Raiders responded right away when they took advantage of a walk and a couple of Clipper miscues to go in front 3-2 after one inning.
The Clippers deadlocked the game 3-3 in the third When Evalyn Schummer walked and scored on a Kenzie Kortuem double. They took a two-run lead in the fourth when McMillen and Brienna Groebner scored on errors for a 5-3 Clipper advantage.
Scoring a pair of runs on an error, a single and a double, the Raiders stalemated the game 5-5 in the fifth before putting up four unearned runs in the sixth.
The Clippers totaled six hits. Kortuem had a double. Voit hit a pair of doubles. Samuelson bashed a pair of triples. McMillen had a single.
Voit went the distance in the circle. She allowed four hits and one walk while striking out nine.
The Clippers, now 3-2, beat Mayer Lutheran 20-11 the night before. They also topped the host JWP JV team 14-9 on April 9 and beat the visiting Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman junior high team on April 7. They lost to the St. Clair/Loyola C team 5-4 in St. Clair on April 9.
The Clippers travel to Northrop today (Thursday) for a rematch against the GHEC/T/ML Jaguars before hosting Madelia on Friday.
Above: Shortstop Khloe McCabe sends a throw to first base.
Evalyn Schummer couldn’t get out of the way on this pitch and got a free pass to first.
Blair Voit went the distance in the circle.