With Clark on fire, 'Dogs softball team pumps fear
I Love Me Some Me
Darrell Copeland III |
If you want to see Christina Clark hit home runs, go to her practices.
If you want to see her go for a walk, go to a Fresno State softball game.
That’s what Bulldog softball fans learned when they attended the double-header between Fresno State and New Mexico State Saturday at Bulldog Diamond.
It was a usual day at the park in the first game with freshman pitcher Robin Mackin pumping gas for Fresno State, faster than the way old school gas attendants back in the day did, getting out after out.
The only thing unusual in the game came when Clark actually made an ugly out leading off for the Bulldogs, fouling a ball off near the handle of the bat, only to be caught by the first baseman.
There it was. New Mexico State had done it. It had awoken Clark, the sleeping dragon. Plate appearances two and three resulted in long home runs to left and center field, each far surpassing any area where people were sitting.
Clark’s last plate appearance of the first game was predictable — a walk. But it wasn’t a regular walk, it was one of those unintentional-intentional ones, where the catcher doesn’t stand up, but the pitch is far enough out of the zone that a pole vault couldn’t reach it.
Clark, the school’s all-time home run leader for more than two years, has only five long balls this season. That is because, of course, of that unintentional-intentional walk thing.
Whatever comes Clark’s way towards the plate, goes back away from the plate even harder — the reason she is batting a team-leading and personal best .430 heading into a first-place showdown with Hawaii.
Clark’s hitting prowess couldn’t have come at a better time for the Bulldogs. The two-game series between Fresno State and New Mexico last Saturday was an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better-athon, with three other Bulldogs hitting home runs in the series. Each of them was of the two-run variety, leading the Bulldogs to a victory in each game, the second a six-inning eight-run mercy rule win.
The potent bat that Clark possesses has rubbed off on her teammates, and the pitching has been as good as it has all season.
All of this spells only one thing for the visiting Hawaii Rainbow Wahine, who visit Fresno this weekend for the first time in two years. They are in deep doo-doo.
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