Winning the nightcap of a doubleheader always provides an emotional boost and makes the walk to the parking lot a little better.
 
Clearwater's softball players have done that plenty of times this season. But on Monday night in Andale, the good vibes from a game 2 victory were the product of the Indians' resiliency after they lost for the first time this season.
 
Junior Brecken Whitney delivered one of her better pitching performances of the spring, holding Andale-Garden Plain scoreless for the first five innings of the nightcap as Clearwater bounced back from an 8-4 loss in the first game to last season's Class 4A runner-up to win 7-2 and improve their record to 13-1.
 
Sophomore Elizabeth Tjaden's two-run home run in the top of the seventh punctuated a somewhat satisfying split for Clearwater, which returns home Wednesday afternoon to face Mulvane sitting atop the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail Division IV standings with a 5-1 record. Andale-Garden Plain is second at 8-2 overall and 3-1 in league play.
 
"It definitely showed me and my whole team that we have a lot of fight," said Clearwater senior Tess Winter, who took the loss in the first game but had three hits in the nightcap. "We just aren't willing to give up. Even though we lost the first one, we were willing to come back and show them what we had."
 
Monday's doubleheader was a significant test for Clearwater, which finished second to Andale-Garden Plain in the league last season and was humbled 13-1 and 17-3 in their head-to-head matchups. Clearwater, which scored double-digit runs in its first 10 games this season, got the jump in the opener against Andale-Garden Plain's all-state pitcher Alyssa Mude, building a 3-0 lead with the help of senior Hayley Gerberding's leadoff homer.

 
But Mude settled in, holding the Indians scoreless from the third through sixth innings as Andale-Garden Plain scored eight unanswered runs. She finished with 13 strikeouts in six innings. Still, Clearwater loaded the bases in the top of the seventh against reliever Addie Ross and got the tying run to the plate, but the Indians couldn't capitalize.
 
"We competed," Clearwater coach Tyler Hampton said. "I think our kids believed that we could have some success out here tonight. In the first game, Mude's a really good pitcher, but we competed with her.
 
"In the second game, (Hannah) Decker's a really good pitcher as well, but our kids were seeing the ball well, hitting the ball well, and we executed."
 
Clearwater scored in five of the seven innings of the nightcap. Freshman Kaylee Hampton, one of the Indians' offensive leaders with a .509 batting average, hit a two-out homer in the first. It was her third of the season. In the seventh, after Andale-Garden Plain's Madison Nightingale broke up Whitney's shutout with a two-run shot to make it 5-2, Tjaden sent her own two-run home run over the wall in left-center to give Clearwater some breathing room.
 
"To swing that momentum right back within five minutes on one swing was huge," Hampton said.
 
Hampton, in his fifth season as Clearwater's head coach, needed to replace 4A first-team all-state outfielders Briona Woods, who moved on to Butler Community College, and Chloe Middleton, who plays at Northern Oklahoma College. Makenzie Haslett, who plays at Neosho Community College, was a second-team all-state pitcher.
 
In addition to Hampton, who has 24 RBIs, Clearwater's offense features Gerberding, an outfielder and Allen Community College signee who is batting .558 with five homers and 25 RBIs in the leadoff spot. Senior Kayleigh Herdman is batting .510 with 14 RBIs.
 
High-scoring shootouts with Winfield and Rose Hill earlier this season took some of the shine off Clearwater's pitching numbers, but Winter is 7-1 with 27 strikeouts in 41.2 innings, while Whitney's victory on Monday ran her record to 6-0 with a 4.57 ERA.
 
"I think we're performing a little bit better than most expected," Hampton said. "As a coaching staff, we certainly thought we had the pieces to be very successful this year, but we graduated some good kids last year. We've had a lot of kids fill roles and step in and play super well, and we're showing it."
 
Clearwater finished 16-6 last season, losing 4-3 to Winfield in the regional finals. The Indians can clinch a share of the Division IV title with a sweep of Mulvane before finishing their regular season with home doubleheaders against Augusta and Circle. The split with Andale-Garden Plain kept that in play.
 
"It's always a big one for us and usually we're pretty nervous for it," Winter said of playing Andale-Garden Plain. "I think we came out not worried about what was on that jersey and just played."

SOFTBALL

– With 10 new players on a roster of 14, it's been a struggle this season for Udall, which completed April with a 2-12 record. One of those victories, however, will be remembered for years to come.
 
The Eagles outlasted South Haven-Caldwell 50-46 on April 18 in a 3½-hour contest believed to be the nation's highest scoring high school softball game in history.
 
"It was just an oddity of a softball game," Udall coach Brad Schafer said. "There were two evenly matched teams and neither one was willing to give up, which was probably a great complement to both sets of girls."
 
Schafer, in his third season as Udall's head coach, said he was in charge of his team's scorebook after a manager left the program to take a job. The task, coupled with his base and dugout coaching duties, proved incredibly challenging as both teams piled up runs.
 
Udall took a big early lead and had chances to close out the game via run rule in the third, fourth and fifth innings, Schafer said. But South Haven-Caldwell, which entered the game winless, scored enough to prolong the game, and ultimately took the lead before Udall regained it in the top of the seventh and held on.
 
The 96 runs possibly set a national record. According to MaxPreps, Cuyama Valley (Calif.) and Coast Union combined for 95 in Cuyama Valley's 48-47 victory during the 2011 season. In Kansas, Bennington and Little River combined for 75 last season in Bennington's 46-29 victory, according to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
 
The second game of the doubleheader was postponed when one of the umpires sustained an injury. The teams were looking to make up the game next week.
 
"It was the following day at practice when we sat down and really talked about it, and once the word got out at some of the records we may have set," Schafer said. "I just told them how proud I was of them. It was a good lesson that no matter how bad things are going for them, the girls are still giving great effort."
 
– Humboldt softball coach Brad Piley earned his 300^th career victory Tuesday during the Cubs' 12-1 and 18-0 sweep of Cherryvale. Senior Kirstyn Murrow homered in both games, including a grand slam in the opener, as the Cubs improved to 13-3 this season after going 19-3 and reaching the regional finals a year ago.
 
– After flexing its offensive muscle in a doubleheader sweep on Friday against Andover, Valley Center's pitching and defense ruled the day in a 7-1 and 5-0 road sweep on Tuesday at Andover Central. The victories clinched the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail Division II title for the Hornets, who are 13-2 and 10-0 in league play. Valley Center has won 10 consecutive games and averaged 11.3 runs during the streak.
 

BASEBALL
 
Maize coach Rocky Helm and Bishop Carroll's Charlie Ebright have competed against each other and developed a good friendship that started more than two decades ago.
 
On April 19, the highly successful duo won their 400^th career games, as Ebright's Golden Eagles swept Wichita East and Helm's squad rallied to defeat Campus in extra innings.

 
Helm spent seven seasons as an assistant at Maize before taking over as the head coach at his alma mater in 1999. In his second season, he led the Eagles to a state title game and then won the school's first boys title in 2003. He added championships in 2005, 2011 and 2017 to go with four runner-up finishes at state.
 
Ebright moved into the head position at Carroll a year later after serving five seasons as an assistant. He has become the Greater Wichita Athletic League's winningest baseball coach, leading Carroll to Class 5A championships in 2005 and 2012. The Golden Eagles have reached the state championship game three other times under Ebright.
 
Helm has coached Maize to a No. 4 ranking in the Kansas Association of Baseball Coaches' Class 5A poll and an 8-3 record this season, including a 5-1 victory over Carroll in its home opener. Carroll is 9-4 heading into a Saturday-Monday doubleheader with rival Kapaun Mt. Carmel. Maize and Carroll will conclude the regular season May 12 with another head-to-head matchup.

– Wichita Collegiate's perfect run through the regular season ended Monday with a 6-4 loss to Mulvane in the first game of a home doubleheader. The Spartans rebounded to win the nightcap 4-2 to improve to 13-1. Senior Ashtun Villagomez  is batting .417 with 21 RBIs and senior Evan Eichenauer is batting .434 with 20 RBIs for the Spartans, who are ranked fifth in Class 3A. Collegiate, the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail Division IV leaders at 7-1, host second-place Clearwater on May 5.
 
– McPherson is atop the Class 4A rankings amid three tough games in the past week. The Bullpups lost 4-3 on Saturday to reigning Oklahoma 5A champion Carl Albert at Oklahoma City's Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, home to Los Angeles Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate. McPherson bounced back Tuesday with road wins over both Salina programs, defeating South 10-5 in 10 innings and Central 10-9. Senior Tytin Goebel went 4 for 5 with three RBIs for the Bullpups in the win over South. Against Central, the Bullpups scored three runs in the top of the seventh to win after Central scored three in the bottom of the sixth to take the lead.