(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The Ankeny Centennial softball team had played Urbandale three times before Saturday’s Class 5A regional semifinal, and each time the Jaguars cruised to an easy victory.
But when it comes to postseason play, you never know what can happen.
Visiting Urbandale threatened to put the fourth-ranked and top-seeded Jaguars on upset alert by erupting for six runs in a two-out rally to build a 6-0 lead in the third inning.
“Everybody comes into the postseason 0-0, and it’s one game at a time,” said Centennial coach Brett Delaney. “That’s a great squad over there, and they gave us everything they had tonight. Hats off to them.”
Despite facing a huge deficit with the season on the line, the Jaguars didn’t let it rattle them.
Centennial dug its heels in the dirt and grinded out 10 unanswered runs over the next four innings to rally for a 10-6 win over the J-Hawks, who finished the season at 10-28.
“I think we were a little shaky coming out of the gates with just some nerves going into playoffs,” said junior center fielder Mady Ott, who went 3-for-4 with three RBIs on the night. “But I think we did a great job coming back from that and chipping away at it as a team.”
Kori Lincicum started the game in the circle for the Jaguars and tossed two scoreless innings before Urbandale’s Tatum Johnson hit a two-run single to ignite the J-Hawks’ outburst in the third.
Centennial (31-9) has always had faith in all the arms it could rely on, so when Lincicum allowed a third run, Delaney turned to Aubrey Scieszinski to give Urbandale a different look.
But the first batter she faced, Payton Traynor, ripped a pitch over the leftfield fence for a three-run homer that doubled the J-Hawks’ lead.
“I feel like Urbandale came out with way more energy than us,” said Lincicum. “We eventually built ours up, but we have to come out strong. We’ve got to play like how we play, and we can’t play down.”
The bats hadn’t gotten going for the Jaguars up to that point, but they went on a big two-out rally of their own that started to turn the tides in the bottom of the third.
Jordyn Kennedy set the tone with an RBI single, Mady Ott followed with an RBI double, and then Lincicum had an RBI single to cut the lead in half.
As Centennial’s offense started to find its groove, so did Scieszinski and the defense behind her.
After giving up Traynor’s homer, Scieszinski (13-3) proceeded to toss four shutout innings while tallying six strikeouts in the process.
“We have all the confidence in Aubrey, and there’s a reason she got that opportunity there,” Delaney said. “We have a five-headed horse that we can go to in that dugout, and we could go to any one of those girls. She was lights out–she’s pitched a lot of high-pressure games, and you could tell she trusted her defense behind her and she got it done.”
The Jaguars’ comeback continued in the fifth inning, when Kennedy blasted a two-out double off Aubrey Schuman and then scored on another double by Ott. Urbandale brought in reliever Sophie Romey to try to protect the lead.
However, Lincicum saw one pitch from Romey and decided to tie the game up right then and there. She blasted her 11th homer of the season over the centerfield fence to make it 6-6.
“I thought it was just going to hit the top of the fence, and I did not think it was going anywhere near there,” Lincicum said. “Rounding second, I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever rounded the bases before. Rounding third I just wanted to bring all the energy to really get my teammates hyped so we could have more energy throughout the game.”
Centennial went on to take the lead in the same inning off an RBI single from Camden Starr. Ott gave the Jaguars a bigger cushion with a two-run single in the sixth before Lauren Bartine put the cherry on top by driving her in two batters later.
The Jaguars put up double-digit runs in all four of their wins over Urbandale. They had swept a doubleheader against the J-Hawks just five days earlier to close out the regular season.
“It’s never easy to find a way to beat a team four times in a season,” Delaney said. “Let alone four times in two weeks and three times in a week. It was a great team effort.”
Centennial will now host No. 11 Cedar Rapids Kennedy (24-16) in a regional final on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Cougars advanced with a 2-0 win over Waterloo West.
Lily Knutson tossed a five-hitter and had 10 strikeouts in Kennedy’s fourth consecutive shutout win.
“We’re keeping our ‘As One’ mindset going and playing as one team,” Ott said.
