Lawton High will have to wait at least one more game to pick up its first win of the softball season.
Despite putting together a furious rally in the final three innings, the Wolverines were unable put away Southwest Oklahoma foe Marlow, falling in a 6-5 classic at home on Friday night. LHS is 0-3 on the season.
Wolverines coach Michael Carrillo said her team's determination kept it in the game.
"I think it's part of a new dynamic we have this year," Carrillo said. "We have a lot of strong girls, we're still pretty young. We're still working out a lot of kinks, but for the most part, they just want to fight and they want to win ballgames.
"We're getting there, slowly but surely. We're getting closer and closer every day."
Lawton trailed for a majority of the contest, and a lot of that was thanks to Marlow pitcher Jayleigh Totten.
Anjelica Gonzalez and Tyiesha Anderson managed hits in the first inning to give Lawton a 1-0 lead, but Totten was nothing less than stellar after that. The sophomore held Carrillo's squad to only one hit the next three innings, striking out four batters in the process.
Outlaws coach Brian Miller said though he was happy with Totten's performance in the first four innings, he knows she has yet to reach her peak.
"She's not where she is going to be in about two or three weeks, " Miller said. "When she gets there, we're going to be an even tougher team."
However, with it being so early in the season, Totten's pitching began to waver in the fifth, and the Wolverines took advantage.
Midajah Riles led off the inning with a single, and after stealing second and third bases after a wild pitch on Totten's next throw, Nadia Garrison brought her home with a double to cut the Marlow lead to 5-2.
Lawton wasn't done there, though.
After another wild pitch allowed a pinch runner to steal third, Totten walked Shari Buckingham, who stole second and third on a throwing error, allowing another run to come in for the Wolverines. MeKayla Blount brought in Lawton High's final run of the inning with a sacrifice fly to score Buckingham, bringing the score to 5-4.
Totten admitted the nightmarish inning came about because she has yet to accomplish her top physical abilities.
"I'm still not in shape because I had knee surgery about three months ago," Totten said. "But I'll get there.
"My team really backed me up and talked me through it. Coach (Miller) told me to keep working hard to hit my spots."
Although Totten's performance was slipping, Miller said he had no plans of taking Totten off the mound.
"She'll be the one out there from first through seventh inning because she's our No. 1 pitcher," Miller said. "She gets a couple of innings where she gets lackadaisical and leaves some pitches out where she doesn't need to, but I'm not worried about that right now because we know what she can do, and she'll do it for a full seven innings."
Marlow widened the gap to 6-4 in the seventh inning when Lauren Wade scored on a single from Angel Marroquin, but Lawton wouldn't go away quietly.
MeKayla Blount stole second base after a throwing error from the Outlaws, and another error on the next play allowed her to take third and home as well to narrow the score to a one-run game.
After getting walked and stealing second and third bases, Gonzalez, with her team facing two outs, was in a position to score the game-tying run. A throwing error prompted Gonzalez to take a chance at stealing home, but the third baseman recovered the ball, sending it to the catcher just in time to tag Gonzalez as she slid across home plate, giving the Outlaws the victory.
Although the result wasn't what she had hoped, Carrillo said Gonzalez did exactly what she was supposed to.
"From my perspective, I thought she was there," Carrillo said. "I thought it was a close call. They threw the ball to third and dropped the ball, and I thought we had it there. It was definitely close, but sometimes it falls that way."
Four of Marlow's runs came in the fourth inning after Lawton replaced McKenzie Kalchik on the mound with Blount, who normally starts. Mia Meshell added another run in the fifth with a leadoff home run, which gave the Outlaws a 5-1 lead.
Both teams take the diamond again on Monday, with Lawton welcoming Midwest City, and Marlow (3-0) hosting Frederick.