Panthers blanked twice at Carlisle

CARLISLE — Two teams ranked in the top 10 of the state in Classes 5A and 4A defeated the Creston softball team by identical 5-0 scores Saturday in the Carlisle Classic.

But, the games were not identical in how those 5-0 scores developed. In the nightcap, Class 4A ninth-ranked Carlisle inched ahead 1-0 on a home run by Allyson Nolte in the fourth inning to break up a 0-0 deadlock through three frames.

In the sixth inning the Wildcats pushed across four more runs to finish off the 5-0 win before the 90-minute time limit expired.

”Their style is unique and the first time we played them they were slapping and bunting a lot and stealing bases,” Creston coach Dave Hartman said. “It’s a different attack, so we just made a decision to not let them be comfortable in that and played five people in the infield for most of the game. For the most part it worked, but they hit it past us one time and that kind of broke the game open. They had two on and slapped a squibber past third base to score two runs. Then we ran out of time.”

Creston’s Taryn Fredrickson was in a good pitching duel with three different Carlisle hurlers in that game, allowing four earned runs on seven hits. The Creston offense was quiet much of the day against good pitching, garnering two doubles against Carlisle by Sidney Staver and Jersey Foote, but no other base hits.

Fredrickson had the only hit for Creston in the opening 5-0 loss to Class 5A ninth-ranked Des Moines Roosevelt. Jaleah Lee pitched the shutout for Roosevelt with seven strikeouts. Nani Bell and Arianna Morrow hit back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning to extend a 3-0 lead to 5-0.

”They’re the number nine team in 5A and they’re pretty good,” Hartman said. “After our doubleheader at LC last Monday we got rained out (Thursday) and hadn’t seen live pitching for awhile, but credit their girl. She really located it well and was good today.”

Fredrickson pitched four innings of the opener, with Kennedy Strider allowing one baserunner but no runs before time ran out in the bottom of the fifth inning.

Hartman said the offense needs to get untracked in a big game Monday at Clarinda to make up a previous rainout. Both Creston and Clarinda have two Hawkeye Ten Conference losses atop the league standings, but Clarinda has played more games at 17-2.

Creston, which beat Clarinda 10-2 in their first meeting, is 13-2 in the conference and 14-14 overall. Clarinda is 29-6 overall and ranked No. 9 in Class 3A.

Stacked 4A field

Roosevelt’s win over Creston was right after an 11-2 loss on Friday to unranked Indianola, which opens Class 4A regional play at Creston on July 11.

Hartman said he and Carlisle coach Jim Flaws spoke after Saturday’s game about the deep pool of talented 4A teams in central Iowa, including Indianola and No. 6 ADM which are on Creston’s side of the 4A regional bracket. The other side of that regional includes No. 10 Winterset and unranked Glenwood and Lewis Central.

Other central Iowa teams in the rankings include No. 1 North Polk, No. 2 Dallas Center-Grimes, No. 3 Norwalk, No. 9 Carlisle, No. 11 Bondurant-Farrar and No. 15 Gilbert.

”Indianola beat Roosevelt yesterday and hit four home runs in beating (5A No. 4) Ankeny Centennial,” Hartman said. “Class 4A is crazy good this year, probably better than 5A. The depth of quality teams is so strong. We’re just trying to get better and put ourselves in position to compete with those teams in the tournament.”