Prep softball: Mustangs edge Lady Dees in top-10 showdown

Jun. 2—BLOOMFIELD — The setting might have been the Mustang Sports Complex on the southwest end of Bloomfield.

Both the Albia and Davis County softball teams, however, put on a performance worthy of the Harlan Rogers Sports Complex on the north side of Fort Dodge.

In a classic battle that may go a long way to determining the South Central Conference softball championship, one swing proved to be the difference on Thursday in a battle of two teams ranked in the top 10 of Class 3A. Sophia Young lined a two-out solo home run over the fence with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, bringing in the only run in fifth-ranked Davis County's 1-0 win over ninth-ranked Albia in a battle of two teams hoping to end their seasons playing in the Iowa High School State Softball Tournament later this summer.

"It was a very important game and a very good game to win," Young said. "It's a good feeling to see our names up there near the top of the rankings. Teams know who we are now. It's a really good feeling. We have goals on not going back to state, but doing even better than we did last year."

After splitting two games in the program's first trip to state, finishing in a tie for fifth overall in the 3A state tournament, Davis County has answered any questions posed so far this season improving to 6-0 overall on the season with five wins in five conference games. Madeline Barker made sure Young's home run held up as the difference in the game, tossing a complete-game two-hit shutout for the Mustangs pounding the strike zone consistently resulting in 10 strikeouts over seven innings.

"It adds a little excitement when you're playing a team as good as Albia. You know you need bring your best," Barker said. "The goal all the time is to throw strikes. I felt good going into the game. It was a good day."

Addison Halstead was able to keep Davis County off the scoreboard, pitching around singles by Young and Barker in the first inning as well as a lead-off hit by Laynee Moore in the second. Albia went down in order in each of the first three innings despite a line out to center by Aliya Myers to end the first and a line out to right by Sydney Hoskins to open the second.

"Both teams were hitting the ball hard. We just seemed to keep hitting it at each other every single time," Young said. "I figured it would be a tough battle just to get a ball in the open gaps. Even when we did get a hit, it came when no one was on base. It's kind of hard to get people in when there's no one on base."

Hard, but not impossible. Young proved that in her third trip to the plate lining a two-out pitch well over the fence in the fifth inning to finally snap the scoreless tie. Young finished with two of Davis County's six hits off Halstead in the contest.

"I tend to always stay at the front of the box because I like the more fast approach," Young said. "I don't like waiting on it because I get too anxious and I think about it. I just try to not think about it, get up to the front of the box and get my swing in."

Lillian DeMoss had the most sustained success of any batter for Albia (4-1, 3-1 SCC) off Barker throughout the night, grounding back to the Mustang ace after a nine-pitch battle in the second inning in which DeMoss saw nothing but strikes during the battle. In the sixth, DeMoss connected on Albia's first hit leading off the inning and reached second base on a wild pitch, putting the Lady Dees in position to tie the game.

Instead, Barker responded by striking out Lexi Jones and Juliana Brown. DeMoss tried to advance to third on a ball that got away from Moore behind the plate on Brown's strikeout, but was called out ending Albia's best chance at bringing home a run as Barker worked around a one-out single by Myers in the seventh by forcing Hoskins to foul out to right before striking out Halstead to end the game.

"We were starting to hit (Barker) late, but we just couldn't put any of those hits together," Hoskins said. "We were way in our heads. She (Barker) is completely hittable. We had solid hits that just weren't falling. We'll get there. We'll see them at our place later this year and I think we'll have a good shot."

Both Albia and Davis County were back in SCC action on Friday as the Courier went to press with the Lady Dees hosting Cardinal while the Mustangs traveled to Clarke. Albia heads to the Oskaloosa Classic to face Newton and Pella Christian at the Lacey Recreation Complex while Davis County will host New London, Wayne and Moravia in the inaugural Mustang Softball Classic on Saturday.

— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.