A friendly rivalry between Emmy and Mady Ott has paid off in a big way for the Ankeny Centennial softball team.
The sisters each blasted a pair of home runs and combined for six RBIs to lead the second-ranked Jaguars to a 10-3 victory over No. 6 Southeast Polk in the Class 5A state tournament on Wednesday at Harlan Rogers Park in Fort Dodge.
“We’re pushing each other hard, but we’re keeping it friendly,” said Mady, a senior outfielder who has starred for Centennial since she joined the lineup as a freshman in 2023. “We’re obviously doing it for the team.”
Centennial (41-3) defeated the Rams for the second straight day while advancing to the Class 5A championship game. The Jaguars will now play No. 1 Waukee Northwest (39-4), the defending champion, on Friday at 7:30 p.m. for the title.
“We were kind of expecting (this matchup),” said Emmy, a sophomore catcher. “We know they’re a good team, but we’ll be ready to play them.”
Emmy Ott hit a leadoff homer in the second inning to give Centennial a 3-0 advantage. The Jaguars had taken an early lead on a two-run single by Mylie Hatfield in the first.
Emmy then blasted another leadoff homer in the fourth to make it 5-1. She now has seven homers in just 59 at-bats this season.
“I’m so proud of her,” Mady said. “Honestly, she deserves it. She puts in the work and she wants it, so I couldn’t be more proud.”
Emmy didn’t play on Tuesday, when fellow sophomore Lexi Adams got the start behind the plate in the Jaguars’ 8-0 win over Southeast Polk in six innings.
“I know I got a good team behind me,” Emmy said. “Lexi is a really good catcher, and I just know she can do the job. It’s great what I did today, but I wasn’t really like counting on (hitting two homers).”
Mady followed Emmy’s first home run with a leadoff blast of her own in the third. It was the 50th roundtripper of her career.
Mady later completed the scoring with a three-run shot in the sixth. She reached base all four times and scored three runs.
“They’re two special players, and it’s very awesome that they get to play on the field together,” Centennial coach Brett Delaney said of the siblings. “Great players make big plays in big-time situations, and those two did it. It was just fun to see.”
Mady’s second blast was her third in the last two days and her career-high 17th of the season. It was also Centennial’s 92nd, increasing its all-time state record.
“We have a good friendly fire going in the dugout,” Emmy said. “We just push each other every time we play.”
Ava Faber doubled and scored a run for the Jaguars, who pounded out eight hits off three Southeast Polk pitchers. Addi Frederick had a pinch-hit, RBI single for the second day in a row.
Peyten Spiegel (18-1) earned the victory in the circle. She allowed three earned runs on five hits over the first six innings before Lauren Sandholm took over and got the final three outs.
“The goal when you start the season is to play on the last day of the season, and these girls worked for it and earned that opportunity to play (for the crown),” Delaney said. “We’re very fortunate for that.”
Reese Curphy and Jadyn Woods each had a home run for Southeast Polk, which ends the season at 26-18. The Rams ousted No. 3 Valley, 12-10, earlier in the day, but were unable to force Centennial to play again under the new double-elimination format.
“I think we came out with the same attitude no matter who we were going to play,” Mady Ott said. “We just kept the same game plan.”
Delaney was happy to see his CIML Conference rivals engage in a lengthy battle.
“We just came up there (to the field), and we knew we had a ball game for seven innings,” he said. “Hopefully it would just be one game, but it actually ended up being a little warmer than we thought it would be today. It was nice to see a little more intense game before it, but whoever was in that dugout, we were going to go after them.”
Northwest, meanwhile, advanced to the championship game with a 4-0 victory over No. 4 Dallas Center-Grimes. Sophia Schlader tossed a two-hitter and also went 2-for-3 at the plate with a solo home run, her 18th of the year.
The Wolves defeated Centennial, 11-3, in five innings in a Class 5A semifinal a year ago.
“This is where we wanted to be,” Mady Ott said. “We want our revenge, and of course we want it in the championship game.”
The Jaguars lost two of three meetings against Northwest during the regular season. The only time they faced Schlader (28-0) came on June 4, when she tossed a seven-hitter in a 6-5 win at Centennial.
“I wanted to play them,” Schlader said. “I’ve only pitched against them once this year. It was a close game, and based on my whole career, they’re a good team and they’ll definitely give us a run for our money. We have numbers on each other, and it’s just going to be a dogfight out there.
“But I feel like if we play our game, we’ll be fine,” she added.
