(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The last time the Ankeny Centennial softball team met Dowling Catholic, the Jaguars needed a dramatic seventh-inning rally and a walk-off hit in the eighth to avoid a potential upset loss to the Maroons.
The second-ranked Jaguars made sure that wasn’t going to be a remote possibility in their opening round matchup at the Class 5A state tournament on Monday.
Centennial blasted three homers, including a Mylie Hatfield grand slam, and rolled to a 12-2 victory over the No. 7 Maroons in four innings at Harlan Rogers Park in Fort Dodge.
“We knew we couldn’t take any team lightly and especially (at the state tournament) because every team wants to win just as bad as the other,” said Hatfield, a senior outfielder who made her IGHSAU state tournament debut with a team-high five RBIs in the win. “We knew to come in and battle as hard as we did.”
When the two squads met on July 1, the Jaguars allowed eight runs in the fifth inning that turned a 4-0 lead into an 8-4 deficit.
Centennial would ultimately rally back thanks to a Mady Ott three-run homer and a Delaney Wyble RBI triple that tied the game with two outs before Kori Lincicum walked things off in the eighth.
This time, the Jaguars jumped out to another 4-0 lead and the margin just continued to grow. After Ott drove in a run and Hatfield hit a sacrifice fly in the first inning, Lincicum delivered a two-run double in the second to make it 4-0.
“(The run support) is really a confidence booster,” said sophomore pitcher Peyten Spiegel. “Not only scoring runs, but they’re all great on the field when I’m throwing, so it’s really easy to settle in and pitch the ball.”
With Lincicum on second, Jordyn Kennedy and Mady Ott both worked two-out walks to load up the bases for Hatfield.
Centennial (39-3) then put the game away with two swings in the span of three pitches.
Facing a 2-1 count, Hatfield launched the ball over the left-field fence for a grand slam that doubled the Jaguars’ lead. It was her 14th homer of the season.
“I just got up there and tried to see ball, hit ball,” Hatfield said. “My teammates laugh at me that I don’t really have a plan (going up to bat). But right off the bat, I could tell it was a good ball and that I would hopefully score some runs for our team.”
Wyble immediately followed by taking the first pitch before hitting a solo homer in the same spot to give Centennial a 9-0 lead. It was her eighth home run of the year.
“It’s always special to get one (home run), but when you get two back-to-back, it makes it even better,” said Centennial coach Brett Delaney, whose squad increased its all-time single-season home run record up to 87. “It takes a little bit of ease off of everybody else, and they could take it one at a time themselves.”
Just like they did in the fifth inning of the last meeting, the Maroons (20-17) tried to sway some momentum back in their favor with a two-out rally in the third inning, when they scored two runs off a pair of passed balls.
But the Jaguars answered and got those two runs right back in the bottom of the inning, thanks to a Cami Starr single and Lincicum’s 18th homer of the year to make it 11-2.
Starr came back up with the bases loaded and two outs in the fourth inning to end the game with an RBI single, completing a 3-for-3 day.
“We worked well as a team, we got outs, and we hit the ball really well,” Spiegel said. “Nothing we could do to do much better than that.”
The new double-elimination format already benefitted Centennial with teams now having to lose twice before the state title game to be eliminated, but its hot start to the postseason run has only reinforced it.
The Jaguars will now get to face No. 6 Southeast Polk (25-16) on Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. in a winners’ bracket second-round game. The Rams advanced with a 13-8 win over No. 3 Valley.
Centennial swept all three meetings against the Rams during the regular season, but the games were competitive. The Jaguars won by scores of 5-3, 7-3 and 5-3.
The winner will play again on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m., needing just one more victory to advance to Friday’s championship game at 7:30 p.m. The loser will play Valley or Dowling on Wednesday at 11 a.m., with the winner of that game then needing two more wins to reach the final.
One of the things working in Centennial’s favor going into Tuesday’s matchup is that a quick victory on a hot day leads to more time to rest and prepare for the Rams.
“We were excited to get done early, and I didn’t want to play another inning if we didn’t have to,” Delaney said. “We can rest our girls, and we didn’t have to throw another pitcher. We found a way to get it done, and it’s always nice to end the game early when you can.”
Spiegel (17-1) tossed all four innings for the Jaguars, allowing one earned run on three hits. She walked three and had seven strikeouts.
“It was nice when my teammates were hitting the ball because I got to cool down,” Spiegel said. “On the mound, I just took my time and worked on the spin and not working too hard.”
