On a night when its 21-game winning streak came to an end, the Ankeny Centennial softball team still managed to pull off another dramatic, come-from-behind victory.
After dropping a 7-3 decision in the first game of a doubleheader on Thursday at top-ranked Waukee Northwest, the No. 2 Jaguars fell behind in the nightcap, 7-3, and were just three outs away from being swept and falling out of first place in the CIML Conference.
Then, the Centennial magic struck again.
The Jaguars rallied for six runs in the seventh inning, capped off by a grand slam from Delaney Wyble, to rally for a 9-7 victory. Wyble’s blast off Northwest reliever Taylor Nuss was her team’s 72nd home run of the year–and perhaps Centennial’s biggest one yet in a record-setting season.
“I got a pitch I was looking for,” said Wyble, who connected for her sixth home run. “They were coming inside and I kept fouling off, and then she kind of missed middle in and then I just swung. It felt really good off the bat.”
The win allowed Centennial to maintain a game and a half lead over the Wolves in the conference race. The Jaguars are now 17-2 in the league and 29-2 overall, while Northwest’s records are 15-3 and 27-3.
The Wolves had won the first meeting at Centennial, 6-5, on June 4. They also defeated the Jaguars, 11-3, in last year’s Class 5A semifinals.
“I think it was very important (to beat them) because this year we have something to prove,” said Centennial senior Kori Lincicum. “It’s all going to come down to that state tournament, and I believe that we will come out on top.”
Lincicum (4-0) was the winning pitcher in the second game. She went the distance in the circle, allowing six earned runs on eight hits.
Lincicum never lost faith in her team after the Jaguars rallied from behind in recent weeks to win several times, including overcoming a 9-1 deficit at No. 8 Waukee on June 17.
“I 100 percent knew we could do it,” Lincicum said. “Like I said, I have full belief in this team and I love every single one of those girls, and I know what they’re all capable of doing.”
Emmy Ott ignited Centennial’s rally when she reached on an error. Lincicum then followed with a two-run homer off Peyton Olson to make it 7-5.
It was Lincicum’s second homer of the game, third of the night and 13th of the season. She had led off the game with a blast off Northwest starter Aaliyah Glenn.
“I’m seeing the ball really well,” Lincicum said. “I had a little hiccup in the giddyup, and now I’m focusing on a few different things and I’m back in action now.”
The Wolves brought Glenn back in, but she immediately gave up a single to Ava Faber and a walk to Jordyn Kennedy. After throwing another ball to Mady Ott, Glenn was replaced by Nuss–who had earned the victory in the opener.
Ott singled to load the bases before Nuss fanned Mylie Hatfield for the first out. That set the stage for Wyble’s heroics.
“We’ve said it multiple times this year–this group never quits playing and always gives themselves a chance,” said Centennial coach Brett Delaney. “We just asked for a few base runners in that last inning and they gave us a few, and then Delaney really came up big for us.”
Both teams were missing a key player for the showdown. The Jaguars were without junior pitcher Lauren Sandholm, while Northwest was missing sophomore star Sophia Schlader.
Schlader has belted 14 home runs in 23 games and boasts a 19-0 record with a 0.62 ERA. She is considered one of the top high school players in the country.
“It was a big deal (to beat them),” Wyble said. “We wanted to show we could beat this team with or without Sophia.”
Schlader is 4-0 against Centennial over the last two seasons. However, after throwing a pair of shutouts a year ago, she gave up three earned runs to the Jaguars at the state tournament and five more in the game earlier this month.
“We may be missing players tonight, but it gave us a lot of confidence to know that we’ll be able to hit her,” Delaney said. “We played them well the first time with Schlader over there. It’s one game at a time though, and we still need to get better.”
Hatfield (4-2) took the loss in the first game. She allowed four earned runs on eight hits.
Nuss took a perfect game into the fourth inning before Lincicum led off with a homer to cut the Wolves’ lead to 3-1. Emmy Ott led off the sixth with another homer, her fifth, to make it 3-2.
Northwest broke the game open with four runs in the bottom of the inning, taking advantage of three Centennial errors. Hatfield hit another solo blast in the seventh, her 12th of the year, but it wasn’t enough.
“That’s very quality opponent in Northwest,” Delaney said. “Obviously, we wanted to come in here and sweep tonight, but we were able to gut out a big victory there. We weren’t our sharpest tonight. We didn’t do some of the routine things right. We probably didn’t hit the ball the best even though we came up with the big hits there at the end when we needed it.”
The Jaguars elected not to use sophomore pitcher Peyten Spiegel in either game. She leads the team with a 13-0 mark and a 0.95 ERA.
Spiegel earned the win in both games of Wednesday’s doubleheader at Ankeny, allowing just one earned run on two hits while recording 14 strikeouts over 8 1/3 innings.
“Peyten threw a bunch (against Ankeny) so we thought we’d save her,” Delaney said. “It was a night of rest for her.”
The Wolves used a four-run rally with two outs in the first inning to take the lead in the nightcap. Maya Twigg hit a two-run homer just inside the left-field foul pole and Maggie Allen later added a two-run double.
Centennial got a run back in the third when Kennedy hit a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded. She just missed hitting a grand slam, but the Jaguars later got the slam from Wyble to salvage a split of the doubleheader.
“I knew this team,” Wyble said of the comeback. “In that dugout, we all believed. I knew it was going to happen.”
The Jaguars will host a non-conference doubleheader on Friday against Iowa City Liberty (15-9). Both teams were placed in Class 5A Region 2 on Thursday by the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union and could meet again in a regional final on Tuesday, July 14.
