By Jess Westendorf
The Iowa (15-24) softball team defeated Iowa State (16-31) 2-1 in a dramatic finish as it competed in the Cy-Hawk series Tuesday night at Pearl Field.
“We are pretty excited,” head coach Marla Looper said. “The energy around this game, and the excitement level gets your heart rate up. It was a tight game, which always makes it challenging. I’ve always believed in our girls, and I continued to believe in them tonight, and I knew we were able to get through that.”
The Hawkeyes started off the game with an illegal pitch by senior Shayla Starkenburg, but that didn’t cost the Hawkeyes anything in the long run.
Other than that one pitch, Starkenburg held her own on the mound. She only allowed 3 hits and 1 run through seven innings.
“I think behind the plate, Devin [Cantu] did a great job calling pitches today,” Starkenburg said. “We went with a different game plan, and we used my curve a little bit more, and it was really affective.”
Iowa State was able to get things rolling in the top of the second after Starkenburg allowed a lead-off walk to junior Kelsey McFarland.
Cyclone senior Rachel Hartman advanced McFarland to second on a sacrifice bunt that should have kept her at second base, but after Hawkeye junior Sarah Kurtz threw wildly past first baseman Kaitlyn Mullarkey, McFarland took third.
The Cyclones then banked on sophomore Kaylee Bosworth to bring McFarland home, and she delivered. Bosworth hit a sacrifice fly to middle right field, giving McFarland enough room to go home and give Iowa State a 1-0 lead.
The next few innings were pretty quick. Starkenburg dominated with the Iowa defense backing her up, keeping the Cyclones off the bases.
It wasn’t until the bottom of the third inning that the Hawkeyes were able to get on the board.
Mullarkey got things going by hitting one over the head of Iowa State’s pitcher Emma Hylen. After a bit of confusion among the Iowa State infielders, Mullarkey was able to take second.
Up next for Iowa was junior Allie Wood, who hit a ground-ball double into left field. With Wood on second and Mullarkey on third, all eyes were on freshman catcher Cantu.
Cantu, the only freshman in the Hawkeye starting lineup, ran the pitch count to 2-2 before she hit a sacrifice fly to center field, allowing Mullarkey to score and even the game at 1.
Iowa went into the bottom of the sixth inning needing to make something happen to stay alive.
Cantu made sure that happened.
She hit a line drive to right field to advance to first, and Looper then sent in pinch runner freshman Havyn Monteer to take over.
Junior Angela Schmiederer did her part by hitting a double down the first-base line that went fair at the last minute, getting Monteer to third.
After reading the play wrong, Monteer jumped off the bag a bit far and put herself in a rundown. She was able to sneak past and slide to beat the catcher to home, scoring Iowa’s winning run.
“I was thinking it was going to be a squeeze, and then we did not squeeze,” Monteer said. “So I got into a pickle, as soon as she got the ball, and she kept running me back, I knew I was going to score because she didn’t throw it in time.”
Monteer gave the Hawkeyes its first lead of the game heading into the seventh.
The Cyclones pushed for a comeback after loading the bases, but freshman Talyn Lewis hit a ground ball with a 3-2 count to Kurtz before she made the game winning throw to first.
With the win, the Hawkeyes have now won the last six of seven games, including two series against Big Ten teams. Iowa will need to keep this momentum heading into a weekend series against No. 5 Minnesota, starting on Friday at 6 p.m.
“We have to prepare better,” Looper said. “We are going to have to do the little things right all the time and eliminating the mistakes, because they will take advantage of them.”
