Mac's Kaegan Christian throws a pitch to an Elgin batter on Tuesday. Christian pitched all five innings in the Highlanders' 13-3 loss, allowing 19 hits.
It was the same story on a different day for Elgin softball.
The Owls got things going early, defeating MacArthur, 13-3, in five innings in Lawton on Tuesday to improve to 2-0 on the season. It was Elgin's second-straight 13-run performance, having defeated Duncan, 13-8, a day prior.
"So far that's been our number, and I'll take 13 every game if they can get it," Owls' coach Levi Garrett said.
However, unlike the Duncan game, Elgin wasted little time putting its competition away.
On only the third at-bat, Abrial Lowe smacked a home run over leftfield, giving her team a speedy 1-0 lead.
Lowe, who finished with three hits, said she knew what to expect from Highlanders' pitcher Kaegan Christian from having batted against her in the Duncan Festival during the summer, and she took advantage.
"If she's going to pitch it right down the middle, I just had to take the first pitch that I got," Lowe said. "It just happened to go right over (the fence). We had two outs when I hit that, and we kept building on that. We build off each other."
Despite his team giving up such a big play only minutes into the game, Highlanders coach Jared Lowmiller said the group's morale remained high, and he had confidence it could make a comeback.
"We got two really good lefty slappers out right off the bat, so we were feeling pretty confident," Lowmiller said of a good defensive start. "If you leave a pitch right down the middle, a lot of batters will do damage with it. We were joking with Kaegan about it, and she was laughing it off, which is what you want to see."
That was the only run the Owls could manage in the inning, but that homer seemed to spark a hitting barrage that put Mac in a hole it couldn't recover from.
Facing two outs in the second inning, Alli Rose blasted a double to deep leftfield to score Ariel McDonald from first base, and the rout was on. Elgin went on to register six straight hits after Rose's double, extending the lead to 7-0 before Mac could record the final out.
The Owls finished with 19 hits, with nine different players getting on base. Lowe, Cali Rowland and Korren Ferrell led the team with three hits apiece.
"I couldn't be any more pleased with that," Garrett said. "When we can come and get double-digit hits, let alone 19, I'm a happy guy. We made (Christian) come over the plate, and when she did, we didn't miss it. Everything we hit found a gap."
The Owls added another run in the third before the Highlanders were finally able to get on a scoreboard with a sacrifice fly from Kennedy Fisher to bring Logan Smith home, but that was the closest Mac would get.
The run fueled Elgin more, for it responded with a four-hit, three-run fourth inning to push the lead to 11-1, putting the game out of reach for good.
Mac's final two runs came on an Emilie Smith RBI double in the fourth and a home run from Smith in the fifth. A series of fielding errors allowed the Owls to tack on two more runs in the fifth.
"Defensively, we have work to do," Lowmiller said. "Our main problem is whenever we make one or two mistakes, we tend to let it snowball into four of five. We made six errors, and if you make six against anybody, you won't stand a chance."
Ferrell, who pitched a full game, picked up the win on the mound for Elgin, allowing seven hits.
"Our team really plays behind (Ferrell)," Garrett said. "She had a couple of balls she threw over the plate, but she threw the ball very well, overall, and she was hitting her spots. I'm glad to see her lead the way because we're going to need her moving forward."
Christian pitched the full five innings as well for Mac despite giving up 19 hits. Lowmiller thought about taking the freshman out when the deficit reach eight runs, but he said he said he decided against it because he wanted Christian to practice working through her problems and making in-game adjustments to her pitching style.
"She's going to pitch 90-plus percent of our games this year, and for us to reach our goal of getting back to the state tournament, she needs to be out there on the mound," Lowmiller said. "She wasn't throwing terrible, she was just missing location some, so we decided we'd force her to work through things and face adversity and tough it out. She started pitching better toward the end of the game, which is what I want to see from her."
The Highlanders now sport a record of 0-2. Mac hits the road to battle Altus on Thursday as it tries to get its first win.
Elgin will host Clinton Thursday at 4 p.m. in its next outing.