LADDONIA, Mo. — The Clopton Lady Hawks were defeated by the Community R-VI Lady Trojans 17-2 in four innings of play. The district semi-final loss was the end to the Lady Hawks season bringing their record to 10-11 for the 2020 season.

“The girls have taken this program from single digit wins, to double digit wins this year. Where we go from here, these girls are the builders of the foundation and we are proud of them,” says Hawks head coach Tony Francis.

Plagued by both physical and mental errors, Clopton fell behind early making it difficult for the team to recover. Community R-VI took advantage of extra bases, racking up runs to help secure a ticket in the district championship.

“We knew what Community was going to do and we self-inflicted some errors tonight. The snowball kept rolling and we couldn’t stop it. When we make a couple errors, get tense, and are overthinking the snowball grows and we just have to use it as a learning experience,” said Francis.

Seniors Brooklyn McKenney, Caragan Lockard, Mary Margaret Garrett, and Logan Hall played their last game for the Hawks, leaving some holes in Clopton’s lineup for next season.

“Shana Yates will take over in the circle for us next year. We have to get stronger up the middle, and behind the plate. We have to wait and see if the girls will use this experience to get stronger in the future, and I hope they do,” said Francis

Despite their loss this evening, Coach Francis is very proud of his athletes in this unusual year for sports.

“Regardless of the wins and losses we are trying to develop strong, independent, young women. No matter what that scoreboard said tonight, I love that team. I will be loyal and die for that team because we built that type of relationship. They are great kids and I am honored to have coached them,” said Francis.

Community R-VI advanced to the championship that is set for Friday night at 6 P.M. against Silex. Reminder you can always find a full recap of scores on the Scoreboard page at kjfmradio.com.