West Burlington, IA -- The Indian Hills softball team won three games against conference foes in the 2010 regular season. In the span of two days this weekend, the Warriors won that same number of games to win the Region 11 postseason tournament and advance to this week's district tournament.
Indian Hills, which entered the four-team region tourney as the number-four seed, completed their run through the tournament on Sunday with a 4-3 win against Muscatine CC to claim the championship.
Kylee Coughlin came out of the IHCC bullpen to save the game for starter Brandi Haight, who had given the Warriors 6 1/3 solid innings in her second win in as many days.
Of the two batters she faced, Coughlin got a groundout to second base and a popup to second baseman Kelly Ruepke to nail down the clinching victory. Coughlin did throw a wild pitch which allowed Muscatine to make it a one-run game, but she got the final out to preserve Haight's 13th win of the year.
Indian Hills snapped a 1-all tie with a three-run 6th inning. The go-ahead run scored on an error and Sarah Wilcox supplied some much-needed insurance with a two-run triple to center field.
Tory Beaver's 2nd-inning solo homer gave IHCC an early 1-0 lead. Muscatine tied the game on a two-out single in the 4th. The Warriors took their 4-1 lead into the bottom of the 7th. Muscatine made it interesting with their two runs, but the Warriors closed out the Cardinals the same way they had the day before in their second win of the tournament.
In that game late Saturday afternoon, Sonja Holmes entered the contest in place of the starter, Coughlin, with a run in and the tying run on 2nd base. After a wild pitch moved the runner to 3rd, Holmes induced a ground ball to third base to nail down the 2-1 win.
Coughlin allowed only six hits and the lone run in picking up her 10th win of the season. It was a victory that allowed Indian Hills to go to the second day of the tournament as the only unbeaten team.
The Warriors had scored their only two runs against MCC on a bases-loaded single by Lizzy Tucker in the bottom of the 3rd. Indian Hills had only three hits in the game, all of them in the 3rd inning. But Coughlin and Holmes made the two runs stand up.
Indian Hills started the tourney with a big 4-1 win against top-seeded Southeastern CC in Saturday's first game. The Warriors had lost four of five regular season matchups with the BlackHawks, but grabbed a 2-0 lead in the 5th on a Morgan Powers RBI-double and a run-scoring single by McKenzie Cason.
After SCC's Amy Harner slammed a solo homer in the top of the 6th to make it a one-run game, the Warriors got two-out RBI-singles from pinch-hitter Sydney Hallbauer and Powers in the bottom of the inning for the final margin.
Haight scattered six hits in going the distance for the pitching victory for IHCC. Ryan Jehle had three of the Warriors' 11 hits and Powers, Cason and Tucker each had two.
Indian Hills is now 31-22 for the season. The Warriors will head to Neosho, Missouri to play Crowder College in the District K tournament May 7-8. The first game of the district tournament will be at 2:00 Friday afternoon (May 7). Game two will follow. And if a third game is necessary, it will be played at noon on Saturday.
The winner of the best-of-three series will advance to the NJCAA national tournament in St. George, Utah May 19-22.
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