Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – On the eve of the Fourth of July it was the Clear Creek Amana bats that provided the fireworks on Wednesday evening.

Clear Creek Amana exploded for nine runs in the third inning on its way to an impressive 12-0, five-inning win over Fairfield (21-9) in a non-conference contest in Tiffin.

“I think this shows that we can put together hits at any time,” Clear Creek Amana junior shortstop Ty Fuller said. “The first two innings were a little slow, scoring two runs but at any time we can get hot and that’s what this shows us.”

Maclane Morgan allowed just one hit in four shutout innings but Wednesday was all about the Clear Creek Amana offense.

Led by Fuller with three hits, eight different Clippers had a hit on Wednesday as Clear Creek Amana (20-13) stopped a three-game losing streak while snapping out of a brief offensive funk.

“We’ve been struggling with hitting lately, the last few games our bats have been dead,” Morgan said. “At practice we worked really hard. We’ve struggled with high fastballs and tonight we nailed those. We worked on our weaknesses.”

Scoring runs has rarely been an issue for a Clear Creek Amana squad that boasts a 3A-best .352 batting average and ranks seventh in 3A in runs.

However, the Clippers scored just seven total runs in three consecutive losses to top-10 teams Solon and Bondurant-Farrar.

On Wednesday the Clippers got back to bashing the baseball.

“We have a very potent offense and we can hit off anybody, at any time on any date,” Clear Creek Amana coach Bryan McCray said. “We’ve been shut down a couple of times but very few pitchers can shut down our guys.”

Clear Creek Amana got its offense going early with a pair of first-inning runs.

Fuller led off with a single and scored on an RBI single by Robert Meade before Trace Robertson plated a run with a sacrifice fly.

“If you look at numbers we have a top two or three offense in 3A,” McCray said. “One through nine our guys can hit, our bottom of the lineup is phenomenal. We don’t have a weak spot.”

Morgan wiggled out of a bases loaded jam in the top of second inning getting leadoff hitter Cason Miller to strike out to end the inning.

It was still 2-0 when Clear Creek Amana erupted for nine runs in the third.

“I think that really got our confidence going and we kept the momentum going into the next inning,” Morgan said of getting out of the jam in the second. “That was big I think.”

Clear Creek Amana had seven hits and sent 14 batters to the plate in the nine-run third inning that featured two hits from Morgan including a two-run double.

“Confidence is everything,” Morgan said. “Hopefully this will propel our offense and we can stay hot and keep going.”

Morgan started the third-inning outburst with a single as the first 10 batters to come to plate all reached base safely.

Fuller, Meade, Reese Cochrane, Robertson and Luke Higdon all had singles in the inning.

“Every hit was a low line drive and that’s what we do all practice, that’s our approach,” Fuller said. “We were doing what we practice.”

The third inning was more than enough run support for Morgan who allowed just a two-out single in the fourth inning.

Morgan struck out four, walked three and hit a batter in four scoreless innings before giving way to freshman Luke Young who worked a perfect fifth inning.

“I was able to locate my fastball which I’ve struggled with recently,” Morgan said. “I worked on it and I was able to do that today. I needed a game like this.’

Fairfield had a six-game winning streak snapped with the loss and was shutout for the first time all season.

“It was just a good day,” McCray said. “It was a good day, good energy in the dugout and we don’t always have that so it was good to have that good positive energy.”

Fairfield                                 000  00  –   0    1   1

Clear Creek Amana              209  1x  –  12  12  2

W – Maclane Morgan                         L – Dain Burkhart

2B – CCA: Maclane Morgan

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