The Red Oak Lady Eagles have proven to be the best of the best on the softball diamonds this year with a sweep of the fastpitch and slowpitch championships. Coming off the covid-19 non-season of last spring, coach Casey Butcher’s lineup was solid with defense, pitching and the opportunity to score a lot of runs to win both state titles. In the fall, Red Oak’s talented lineup finished 18-7 to claim the Class B fastpitch championship and began the 2021 Class A slowpitch championship tournament ranked number one winning seven of the last eight outings.
On the diamonds at the Ball Fields at Firelake in Shawnee, Red Oak made short work of their opponents scoring 58 runs while giving up only 11 tallies to their opponent playing just 10 innings to capture the school’s sixth slowpitch state championship, four of the last five times the tournament has been played.
The bats were on fire from start to finish as Red Oak eliminated Tupelo 15-0 in a run-rule three inning contest and then used a 10-run explosion in the bottom of the third inning to get the 19-3 victory against Lookeba-Sickles setting up a showdown against Whitesboro in the finals. With the score reading 10-8 after three innings, Red Oak hammered across 14 runs in the top of the fourth as Ashton Grogan continued her red hot day including going 8-10 at the plate with seven home run and sophomore Kaylee Cannon extended the offensive showing going 4-for-5 at the plate with a pair of home runs before the Lady Eagles closed the gates with a smothering defense and freshman Lexi Ober in the circle for the 24-8 championship and celebrated with the dogpile in the middle of the field as the Class A champions.
“Slowpitch state is a one day winner take all tournament and you have to play your very best,” said coach Casey Butcher who won his 10th state title as a head coach. “We talk about being humble and not take anything for granted. The girls were on fire and demonstrated our every day approach to winning games, outwork and outplay everyone everyday. That’s just what we try to do at Red Oak.”
