SWCC splits afternoon against No. 5 Iowa Central

With a runner on, Amaya Porch stepped up in the bottom of the tenth inning for Southwestern against the fifth ranked team in NJCAA Div. II Iowa Central.

After a leadoff walk from Makinna Fitzgerald to put the game-winning run on base, Porch walked up to the plate looking to bring her home and make it the third straight win for the Spartans.

A play call ensued from Weinmeister to give the illusion of the bunt, which Iowa Central countered by pulling the third baseman in.

On the first pitch Porch turned on it and drove it over the center field wall, walking off the Spartans by a score of 8-6 against the fifth-ranked team in the country for their third consecutive win.

“When she put that swing on it I thought ‘this is too good to be true,’” said Weinmeister. “Honestly, (the decision to let her swing) was more so me not trying to second guess my decision making process.”

Knowing the conventional approach to move the runner over with no outs, head coach Nick Weinmeister decided to scrap the decision and let his five-hole hitter swing away.

“My thought is, conventionally every other coach is bunting her (Fitzgerald) over to second to try and get the winning run in scoring position. In my head I was thinking that as well as Amaya has swung the bat this game, there’s no way I can take the bat out of her hands.

“It wasn’t a fluke that we beat them. We definitely deserved to win that game more than they did just based on how it was playing out,” said Weinmeister.

Going the distance

An anchor in the staff for the Spartans, Kelsey Tibbs went above and beyond for the Spartans as she pitched her way into a ten-inning winning decision.

To Weinmeister, it was an easy decision to keep Tibbs pitching through the extra innings.

“Knowing that she wasn’t going to pitch game two, I was riding her out,” said Weinmeister. “Our best defense was out there and beside that first inning, she was pitching phenomenal and proved that all the way through.”

Tibbs held the Tritons to just two runs after a four-run first inning, settling in and finding her groove even in late innings, stranding runners on base that were potential go-ahead runs for the Tritons and keeping the Spartans in the game long enough to win it.

Her efforts came against an offense that was hitting .382 (third in the conference) with 42 home runs (first in the conference) entering Thursday.

The complete game is Tibbs’ eighth of the season, improving her to a win-loss record of 3-6 on the season through 70 2/3 innings pitched.

Her marathon complete game puts her in the top-five in ICCAC Div. II rankings for complete games thrown and pushes her into the top-five in the conference in innings pitched.

The big one

The Spartans surrendered seven runs in the second inning in game two against Iowa Central, putting them behind the eight ball in an 11-3 loss to the Tritons.

“They put some really good swings on the ball,” said Weinmeister. “We started Ella (Rutherford) and got out of a first inning jam, but in the second inning they put a couple balls out of the park and ended up getting a seven spot.”

Iowa Central got homers from Cheyenne Andersen and Breanna Tjebben, plus extra base hits from Lauren James and Alexis Morrison to score the first seven batters of the inning before recording an out.

The Tritons tacked on three more runs in the fourth inning to push put the Spartans up against the run-rule in the fifth inning.

The Spartans succumbed to the run-rule in five innings despite a late rally that brought in three runs.

The two-out rally for the Spartans had base hits from Porch, driving in one and a base hit from Cayla Maitlen that brought in two runs.

Weinmeister said that to work on preventing the big inning from happening going forward, the team is going to work on high-leverage situations in practice.

“That’s kind of been the Achilles heel of this team, that big inning,” said Weinmeister. “One of the nice things I think that this team does really well is that when our backs are against the wall we somehow manage to get the job done.”

Marshalltown rout

Prior to the series against Iowa Central, Southwestern hosted Marshalltown CC Tuesday in a doubleheader.

The Spartans emerged victorious, sweeping Marshalltown by scoring 30 runs across two games.

Enright hit her way to a 4-for-6 day with six RBIs across both games, including a homer in a 20-4 game two rout.

Enright also pitched seven innings in game one, striking out four to go with her impressive day at the plate.

Schad plated six runs against Marshalltown and Porch drove in four runs also.

UP NEXT – The Spartans (5-16, 1-5) will head to Ellsworth CC (8-14, 0-6) Saturday for a doubleheader.

Southwestern 8, Iowa Central 6 (10)

R  H  E

ICCC  400  200  000 0  —  6 11  5

SWCC  000  131  100 2  —  8  12  2

ILCC: McKenzie Capesius 7IP 1K , Brenna Small 2IP 3K. SWCC: Kelsey Tibbs 10IP 2K . W — Tibbs. L - Small. HR — ICCC: Cheyenne Andersen, Breanna Tjebben. SWCC: Ali Enright, Amaya Porch. 3B — none. 2B – ICCC: Lauren James, Andersen. SWCC: Kaitlyn Schad, Ella Rutherford, Porch, Enright. RBI – ICCC: Tjebben (2), Gabrielle Bingham, James, Andersen. SWCC: Enright (3), Porch (2), Rutherford. Stolen bases – ICCC: Sophia Cave, Bingham. SWCC – Lindsay Rader.

Iowa Central 11, Southwestern 3 (5)

R  H  E

ICCC  170  30  —  11 10  5

SWCC  000  03  —  3  4  2

ILCC: McKenzie Capesius 5IP 2K, Brenna Small 2IP 3K. SWCC: Ella Rutherford 1IP 1BB, Ali Enright 4IP 1K 2BB. W — Capesius. L - Rutherford. HR — ICCC: Andersen (2), Tjebben. 3B — none. 2B – ICCC: Alexis Morrison, James, Cave. RBI – ICCC: Andersen (3), Morrison (2), Tjebben (2), Marker (2), James. SWCC: Cayla Maitlen (2), Porch. Stolen bases – ICCC: Bingham (3), Tjebben, Marker. SWCC – Enright, Schad.