If the Ankeny softball team is going to have a successful season, Zoe Baker and Anna Voigt will likely have to play key roles for the Hawkettes.
The two seniors came up big on Friday as Ankeny posted a pair of victories at the Creston Invitational. The Hawkettes rallied for a 9-7 win over Burlington and also defeated Creston, 5-3, to raise their record to 3-5.
“Those were two important wins for us,” said Ankeny coach Dave Bingham. “No matter how much you want to avoid it, our record was 1-5 before Friday and that was just the reality of things. I don’t think our kids know how good they can be. You can pump them up all you want, but they just take (the record) so personally. So I think the wins will only help our confidence.”
Baker hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the sixth inning to beat Burlington. It was the second home run of the season for Baker, who went 2-for-2 and had six RBIs in the game.
“She’s finally settling in,” Bingham said of Baker. “I think I told her in the fourth inning she’d have to hit a walk-off homer to win this thing, so it was kind of neat that it actually happened. The key is just to have quality at-bats, and that’s what she did.”
Voigt went 2-for-3 and drove in Ankeny’s other three runs. She leads Class 5A with a .652 batting average.
“Voigt is just a natural ball player,” Bingham said. “She’s a double and line-drive hitter. What a luxury it is to have her in our lineup.”
Madeleine Murphy went 2-for-3 and scored twice for the Hawkettes, who rallied for five runs in the sixth inning to erase a 7-4 deficit.
Shelbie Chambers (2-2) was the winning pitcher. She allowed four earned runs and had four strikeouts over five innings of work.
Baker then had three RBIs in the win over Creston. Voigt went 2-for-3 with a double, stole two bases, scored two runs and drove in another.
Shelby Romig also went 2-for-3. Eva Fulk knocked in a run.
Paige Jacobsen (1-3) earned the victory, allowing no earned runs over 4 2/3 innings. She had two strikeouts.
The Hawkettes will host a CIML Central Conference doubleheader against Urbandale (6-5) on Monday.