FORT DODGE \u2013 This wasn\u2019t the debut the Exira-EHK\/Audubon softball team was hoping for.<\/p>\n
Conversely, it was for eighth-seeded Edgewood-Colesburg against the Spartans in Monday\u2019s Iowa Class 1A state softball tournament opener.<\/p>\n
Rachel Eglseder, the Vikings\u2019 ace who came in to the tournament with 283 strikeouts, fanned 15 Spartans, tying for an all-time Class 1A best in quarterbacking a 6-3 upset victory on the Farm Bureau Field.<\/p>\n
The Spartans (23-5), the No. 1 team in Class 1A, will now have to win an elimination game Tuesday afternoon to stay in this new double-elimination tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the beauty about the double elimination thing … you\u2019re not done,\u201d said coach Tom Petersen after talking with his team. \u201cYou get a chance to come back and play again. And that\u2019s exactly what I said to them over here. I said, \u2018You know, this is the first time they\u2019ve had this format. Our goal is to step up and play two games tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I hope that our girls are excited for that opportunity to flush this yet. It stinks that we lost, but that\u2019s got to be behind you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Spartans did draw first blood, as lead-off batter Taryn Petersen took advantage of being hit by a pitch to score on a one-out double by Riley Miller.<\/p>\n
However, Eglseder settled in and, with one strikeout already in the books, went on to strike out six of the next seven batters she faced. The Vikings offense, meantime, got on the board on the first of two home runs by Abbi Schmelzer, her first coming in the second inning on a solo shot over the left field fence to tie the game.<\/p>\n
The Vikings added two more runs in the fourth on Chloe Everett\u2019s RBI single with two out, making it 3-1. The Spartans fought back in the fifth, and again it was a two-run hit, again by Miller. Miller ended with all three of the Spartans\u2019 hits, and all three RBIs.<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s two-RBI hit made it 3-3, but the Schmelzer got her team the two-run lead back in the top of the sixth with her second home run, a two-run blast over right to make it 5-3. Eglseder helped her cause with the additional insurance run in the top of the seventh.<\/p>\n
Eglseder\u2019s pitches were effective enough to keep the Spartans off-balance and guessing for the most part.<\/p>\n
But, Petersen said, \u201cIt\u2019s nothing we haven\u2019t seen all year. There\u2019s really nothing else to say. We\u2019ve seen pitchers like her multiple times, it\u2019s just a little bit different atmosphere. We got to be better. Obviously, you can\u2019t strike out 15 times.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, we changed a few things, but when you\u2019ve got two strikes, you got to be up there swinging, and we\u2019re watching balls go right down the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the Spartans got baseruners on. \u201cWe still had girls in scoring position even though we only had three hits,\u201d said Petersen.<\/p>\n
Miller, for her part, pitched well despite the Vikings getting 10 hits, and in Petersen\u2019s opinion, well enough to give her team a chance to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what good teams are going to do,\u201d said Petersen. \u201cThey got two runs in, but she still threw good enough to win. We got some plays that we left out there, and we just have to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petersen was indeed optimistic that his team would be better in the next round and continue a potential march toward a state championship.<\/p>\n
The Vikings (28-10) moved on in the winners bracket, while the Spartans will play either West Monona or Southeast Warren in a 10:30 a.m. win-or-go-home game. The winner of the elimination game survives to play against at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, against either Edgewood-Colesburg (if they are defeated) or the West Monona-Southeast Warren winner.<\/p>\n
The winner of the 7:30 p.m. game plays again at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, with a potential second game at 5:15 p.m., with that winner going to the state championship game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT DODGE \u2013 This wasn\u2019t the debut the Exira-EHK\/Audubon softball team was hoping for. Conversely, it was for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2323,2314,2317,2313,2413,13469,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,15915,4,2305,2303,1210,1697,1039],"class_list":["post-757073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-events","tag-baseball-finals","tag-baseball-games","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-champion-seasons-in-major-league-baseball","tag-double-elimination-tournament","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-softball","tag-tournament","tag-world-series"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}