Friday night, the Iowa Falls-Alden summer sports team hosted Hampton-Dumont-CAL in their season series finale on Strikeout Cancer night. After some traffic on the bases in the first two frames, the HD-CAL softball team struck first with a two run 3rd inning. IFA responded with a two run rally in the bottom half of 3rd. The Cadets took the lead in the 4th and added an insurance tally in the sixth, and led 4-2 entering the 7th. In the top of the 7th Charlee Morton tied the game at four all for the Bulldogs with a two run blast. The Cadet’s Alivia Tupper drove in the winning run off Bulldog pitcher Malie Ott in the 8th to clinch the 5-4 walk-off victory.
Head Coach Emily Banken says the Cadets did a good job of bouncing back from early errors and Tupper continues to make plays in her role as clean up hitter.
“We had a few miscues early in the game, some mental errors and mistakes that normally we can’t really recover from,” says Banken. “Today they did a good job of competing and putting the ball in play, making Hampton make some plays, in the end it ended up working up in our favor. Tupper is strong, so whenever she gets a hold of the ball you know that it’s going to be a hard play for them to make and she’s had a couple home runs. Her being in that fourth spot with some speed in front of her is always a good thing to have up in the eighth inning or any extra inning.”
The Cadets were led by Abigail Janssen, Isabelle Janssen, Alivia Tupper who drove in a run apiece. Cidni Phipps earned the win and pitched a complete game allowing three earned runs with eight strikeouts. HD-CAL was led by Charlee Morton with two RBI’s. Malie Ott also pitched a complete game in the loss for the Bulldogs allowing three earned runs with three strikeouts.
Iowa Falls-Alden (5-10, 4-5 NCC) will travel to Algona on Monday. HD-CAL (7-12, 5-6 NCC) will host St.Edmond on Monday.
In the baseball game, HD-CAL won 11-6 over the Cadets. IFA led 3-0 through four innings and then the Bulldogs bats got on a roll scoring 11 runs over the final three innings. Brody Walton drove in three and Cael Burmester sent two home to lead the Bulldogs. Dawson Wikert earned the win on the hill allowing four earned runs with eight strikeouts in 6 ⅓ innings.
HD-CAL (7-16, 3-9 NCC) will host St. Edmond on Monday. IFA (4-11, 3-6 NCC) will be at Algona.
