Wayne product maximizing senior season
Left fielder Clark’s hitting tear earns HL weekly honor.
All college athletes begin their senior season hoping to make it the best year of their career, and Wright State left fielder Angie Clark has nearly guaranteed herself of that with six full weeks of softball action remaining.
The Wayne High School graduate already has set a career high with five stolen bases after recording six in her first three seasons combined. Her .266 batting average is 26 points higher than her previous best of .240. And she sits just four RBIs short of her career high after a performance last week that earned Clark the Horizon League Batter of the Week Award.
“The older you get, the more pitchers you get to see, the more you know and the more relaxed you become,” Clark said after winning the HL award for the first time in her career.
In leading the Raiders to a 4-1 record with a pair of wins against Ohio and Cleveland State, Clark hit .571 (8-for-14) with three doubles and nine RBIs.
To put that performance in context, those nine RBIs are three shy of the 12 she recorded last year while playing in four games.
“The girls ahead of me are doing an awesome job of getting on,” Clark said when asked about the spike in run production. “It’s a combination of them doing a great job and I’m seeing the ball really well. It’s just worked out for us.”
A business management major, Clark only needs four more RBIs to tie the career high of 15 she set as a sophomore. And with at least 28 games remaining on the schedule, she would appear to be a lock to achieve that.
She’s also nine hits and 15 total bases away from setting new marks in those categories as well. And her five steals are not only a personal best, they are two shy of leadoff batter Jess Gorman’s teamleading total of seven.
“That’s just because coach is giving me the steal sign more,” Clark joked.
Laughing and having fun have been a big part of her success this season as well, she said.
“One of my main goals this year is to really have fun and enjoy it,” Clark said. “Coach (Lynn Curylo) brought it up after practice the other day that the seniors only have six weeks left in their careers. She said we’re really going to be missing this next year when it’s over.
“The closer it gets to the end of the season, the more it starts creeping into your mind that it’s almost over,” Clark continued. “You hope the team does well and you have a lot of fun. You want to make sure your final memories of college softball are good ones.”
Award candidates:
Two players on the WSU baseball team have been announced as candidates for a pair of national awards.
Sophomore catcher Sean Murphy has been named to the 2015 Johnny Bench Award Watch List. The award is given annually to the top Division I catcher.
Senior second baseman Michael Timm is one of 15 finalists for the 2015 Senior CLASS Award. An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the CLASS Award honors excellence in the areas of community, classroom, character and competition.