(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
Jordyn Kennedy has officially entered into the Ankeny Centennial softball record book.
During Monday night’s home doubleheader against Dowling Catholic, the junior slugger crushed her 36th career home run to surpass former Ankeny and Centennial great Kendyl Lindaman as the Jaguars’ new all-time home run record holder.
“It feels good!” Kennedy said. “It just overall feels good.”
Kennedy started the chase for Lindaman’s school record during the 2022 season, when she led the Jaguars with four homers as the only eighth grader on the varsity roster.
She smashed 12 homers in back-to-back seasons during her freshman and sophomore years to bring her total up to 28 heading into the 2025 campaign, where Kennedy is on pace to set her season high.
In 14 games, Kennedy has already hit eight home runs, which leads the Jaguars and ties her with Dallas Center-Grimes sophomore Jenah Gray for third in the state.
“It’s been fun to watch all those (homers) in the third base coaching box,” said Centennial coach Brett Delaney. “It’s all her hard work, and she puts that hard work in for 12 months of the year. I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure she puts on herself, but she just goes up there cool, calm and collected.”
Lindaman still holds a record that has yet to be broken as the former star at both Ankeny schools remains Iowa’s all-time home run leader with 71.
She crushed 36 home runs in her first two seasons playing for Ankeny before going on to hit 35 more across three years at Centennial after the school district split into two high schools.
The homer that ultimately pushed Kennedy ahead of Lindaman came in the bottom of the fifth inning during the Jaguars’ 14-5 victory in the first game of the doubleheader. Third-ranked Centennial went on to win the second game, 6-0.
Kennedy stepped into the batter’s box with two on and two outs before launching the first pitch she faced deep over the right-field fence to give Centennial a 10-5 lead.
“I was seeing a lot of outside (pitches), and I knew that I needed to drive it that way,” Kennedy said. “Then I just had to wait on it a little bit more because it was a little slower pitcher and then just take it and drive it to right-center.”
Kennedy still has the rest of this summer and a whole senior season ahead of her with plans to continue adding onto her home run mark before she begins her college career at the University of Minnesota.
The Gophers program was also the same one Lindaman went to after graduating from Centennial. She eventually finished an outstanding career at the University of Florida.
“I really liked (Minnesota’s) coaches a lot,” Kennedy said. “Like right away I felt I had a good connection with them. I met a lot of the players when I went up for my visit, and I just really liked the environment.”
As a team, the Jaguars handled business on their home diamond, extending their winning streak to five games while improving to 7-3 in the CIML Conference and 11-3 overall. Dowling dropped to 2-6 in the league.
Kennedy went a combined 4-of-8 from the plate with four RBIs. She had a double in the second game and is now batting .579 on the season.
Centennial got off to a slow start in the opener, falling behind by 4-1 after the first inning. But the Jaguars came roaring back and went on to earn the run-rule win in six innings.
Mady Ott put an exclamation point on the victory by blasting a three-run shot over the fence in right-center field. The walk-off homer was her fourth of the season and the 24th of her career.
Aubrey Scieszinski (5-1) tossed a complete game, allowing two earned runs on seven hits. She tallied nine strikeouts.
The Jaguars didn’t get to pile on as many runs in the nightcap, but a complete game shutout by Kori Lincicum (3-2) helped power the way. Lincicum tossed a four-hitter and racked up nine strikeouts.
“Kori’s been pitching well, and her defense behind her is playing just as well,” Delaney said. “We’re very fortunate that we have two, three, four girls we can go to in our dugout pitching-wise to find ways to get sweeps and wins this season.”
The Jaguars will look to keep their momentum going as they travel to Valley on Thursday for a big conference doubleheader against the No. 4 Tigers (9-4).
