Rough Second Day Spoils Region Tourney for IHCC

Muscatine, IA -- It was a Region 11 postseason tournament that started out very promisingly for the defending champion Indian Hills Warriors. IHCC won both of its games on Saturday to go into the final day of the tourney as the only unbeaten team, needing just one more win to nail down its second straight conference crown.

But Iowa Western avenged an extra-inning loss to the Warriors the previous night with two victories on Sunday to claim the region title.

The Reivers first had to defeat host Muscatine CC to stay alive in the double-elimination affair in Sunday's first game. After they accomplished that, IWCC then took care of the Warriors with 8-1 and 13-1 wins.

One of the biggest surprises was the way IHCC's offense was held in check in the two Sunday games. After scoring 17 runs while beating Southeastern, 9-0 in five innings, and Iowa Western, 8-5 in nine innings, the day before, Indian Hills managed only an RBI-single by Cortney Wood in the first game and a solo homer from Sarah Wilcox in the second game.

Meanwhile, the Reivers teed off against Indian Hills pitching. They had two grand slam homers and a three-run shot.

One of the grand slams, by Daleigh Fossler, started the scoring in the first game. The Reivers then put the game away with four insurance runs in the 6th.

IWCC began the game-two scoring with a home run too, a three-run drive to left in the 1st by Shelby Hermsen. McKenna Bartko had a grand slam in the 3rd.

Only twice all day, in 12 innings, did Indian Hills have more than one runner on base in an inning.

Saturday couldn't have gone much better for the Warriors. Freshman Hannah Washburn threw a perfect game against SCC, retiring all 15 batters she faced. She struck out four in the five-inning gem.

Her teammates backed her with an early 7-0 lead. Jordan Grell had a two-run single in the 1st and added another RBI-hit in the 2nd, in front of Nicole Steinle's two-run homer.

The Saturday night extra-inning win against Iowa Western provided plenty of drama. After the Reivers scored a run in the top of the 9th to break a 4-all tie, Indian Hills was down to their last out in the bottom of the inning.

Grell drove a high fastball over the leftfield fence to tie the score. Steinle kept the inning alive by drawing a walk and Tory Beaver singled to center.

That brought up Cortney Wood, who had hit a walk-off homer a week earlier to beat Iowa Western. Wood went after the first pitch from IWCC's Greta Smeins and hit a no-doubt shot over the fence in left-center.

The Warriors came from behind three times in the game before winning in thrilling fashion.

Wilcox had three hits, including a pair of doubles, and Kylee Homewood and Morgan Powers each had two. Everybody in the starting lineup had at least one hit except for Steinle, who walked four times.

Washburn pitched the final two innings in relief -- coach Jim Overturf used four pitchers -- and picked up her second win of day.

But the Warriors couldn't carry over the enthusiasm from Saturday night into the next day's performance and saw their season end with a 34-17 record.

It was a very tough way for the nine sophomores on the IHCC squad to have their careers come to an end.