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No. 2-ranked Comets sweep Go-Hawls

Press photos by John Burbridge Comet freshman Allie Cross takes it on the chin while being tagged out by Go-Hawk catcher Carlie Robbins.
Press photos by John Burbridge
Comet freshman Allie Cross takes it on the chin while being tagged out by Go-Hawk catcher Carlie Robbins.
By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — It may be too early in the season to break out the champagne to celebrate a pending successful defense of their Northeast Iowa Conference title, but the Class 4A No. 2-ranked Comets have just pulled off back-to-back doubleheader sweeps of NEIC foes who are also ranked among the state’s best.

So at least we can say that Charles City is off to a decent start.

With a pair of wins over Waverly-Shell Rock by scores of 10-0 and 5-3 on Tuesday, the Comets improved to 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the NEIC.

Their other two conference wins came last Thursday in a pair of thrillers against Crestwood.

The big blow in the first game was a grand-slam from senior Tayler Schmidt that helped put the Comets up 7-0 through two innings.

It was a rare home run by Schmidt — but not that she doesn’t hit too many homers as she’s been among the team’s leaders in that category for the last several seasons. But as a dead-pool hitter, most of Schmidt’s dingers are to left field.

For this shot, Schmidt took an outside pitch from Go-Hawk Game 1 starter Hanna Fanter and drove it to right-center field where it cleared the fence by 15 feet.

In the fifth inning, Comet freshman Ashlyn Hoeft almost ended the game with a homer of her own as her drive to deep right field hit the top of the fence.

With two runners on and the Comets up 8-0, it looked like it might end the game, anyway, but Allie Cross — the would-be 10th run — was thrown out at the plate.

Yet the Go-Hawks still couldn’t survive the inning as freshman Rachel Chambers later drove home Hoeft with a single for her first walk-off hit of her varsity career.

Junior Sami Heyer was the winning pitcher in both games. After dominating the shortened first game, Heyer and the Comets got into a little trouble in the top of the seventh as the Go-Hawks — who trailed 4-0 in Game 2 after two innings — managed to score an unearned run and had the tying run at the plate with one out before the Charles City closed the door.

Comet senior third baseman Ciana Sonberg had an RBI double to start the scoring in the first game, and had three hits in the second game.

For the Go-Hawks, who came into the DH undefeated and ranked No. 15 in Class 4A, the double setback dropped them to 3-2 and 2-2.

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