Panther girls rally past Glenwood

Three big hits in the fourth inning propelled Creston to a 5-1 Hawkeye Ten victory over Glenwood Tuesday night at Panther Field.

Creston, which dropped a doubleheader at Atlantic earlier in the season, stayed in the chase to defend its Hawkeye Ten championship by handing Glenwood its third conference loss. Going into Tuesday’s action, Creston, Atlantic and Glenwood each had two league losses at the top of the standings, with four other teams having just three losses.

One of those three-loss teams is Kuemper Catholic, which hosts Creston tonight (Wednesday) to make up for the games postponed on Monday by illness on the Kuemper team. Creston is now 8-7 overall and 6-2 in the conference. Glenwood falls to 10-5 and 8-3.

Glenwood led 1-0 through three innings in a pitching duel between Alli Koontz of the Rams and Panther senior starter Keely Coen. In the bottom of the fourth Creston’s offense got untracked with some big hits. Daile Keeler doubled, and Mila Kuhns and Jersey Foote hit back-to-back home runs. (Foote had also homered earlier in the JV game.)

The lead went from 3-1 to 5-1 in the sixth as Sophie Hagle delivered a two-out, two-run single to right field to score Keeler (who hit her second double) and Kuhns, who had reached on a hit to right.

Taryn Fredrickson got the save in relief of Coen, overpowering the Rams with eight strikeouts and no hits allowed in three innings. Coen allowed five hits with three strikeouts and no walks in four innings pitched.

Koontz, who had two of Glenwood’s six hits, struck out five and walked none in taking the loss.

“It is a good team and a good win and our girls are excited to get it,” Creston coach Dave Hartman said. “I know it meant a lot to them. We’re trying to get better at what we need to get better at whether we’re playing Glenwood, or Shenandoah, or Red Oak or Ankeny. We’re trying to get ready for the tournament, and if we happen to win the conference along the way, that’s great. Our goal is to win the regional tournament and maybe play for a state title. These are the games that help us get closer to that goal.”

Creston’s only baserunner in the first three innings occurred when Kuhns was hit by a pitch in the second. The Panthers started getting better swings in the three-run fourth.

“She was pitching us away early and we were getting ourselves out chasing pitches that we really didn’t want to hit,” Hartman said. “I thought our plate discipline got a lot better as the game went along.”

The Panther coach likes the mix of the Coen, the crafty senior with movement and good location, and the power pitching of Fredrickson as a closer.

“I thought Keely did a really good job of getting through their order twice and we played pretty clean defensively,” Hartman said. “Their only run came on a deep flyball that Caitlin (Bruce) almost caught at the fence. When Taryn came in she was throwing really hard and they couldn’t catch up to her.”

There were some instances in the game, in terms of picking up signs as batters and baserunning situations, that Hartman said weren’t up to championship standards against a quality opponent. The good thing, he said, is that those lessons were learned in a victory.

“We have to shore up some things to get where we want to be,” Hartman said. “I can tolerate all kinds of physical errors. People strike out and drop balls in the field, that’s just part of the game. But we need to clean up the mental errors. I think we have to step back at times and just slow down. Sometimes our minds are racing 100 miles an hour and it’s hard to handle instruction when you have 15 thoughts racing. We have to work on our mental game and our mental toughness, that was some of the message tonight. But hey, this is a big win and they need to enjoy it and be ready to play tomorrow.”

After traveling to Kuemper today, the Panthers host Red Oak Thursday night before playing two games in the Indian Classic in Oskaloosa on Saturday against Sigourney at 11 a.m. and Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont at 12:45 p.m.