Former No. 1 Comets defeat current No. 1 Mustangs, 1-0

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — Home runs are overrated according to some fans who claim that triples are far more exciting.

But what about triples stretched into inside-the-park homers?

You didn’t have to see Madeline Peters’ inside-the-parker to know it was an exciting trek around the bases. You could have been within a half-mile radius of Sportsmen’s Park and still heard the commotion.

That in part was because Friday’s non-conference softball game between Independence and the hosting Charles City Comets drew the biggest crowd of the season. And with good reason.

The Comets recently were perched atop the Class 4A softball rankings periodically released by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. They held that No. 1 status for two weeks before the Mustangs took over the top spot last week.

The significance of getting a chance to prove who’s really No. 1 on the field of play was not lost on the Comets.

“We knew going in that we were two evenly matched teams,” said Comet head coach Brian Bohlen, after his team won, 1-0, with Peters’ home run representing the deciding run, “and we expected this type of ball game.”

With one out in the bottom of the third, senior shortstop Peters drove an outside fastball by Mustang ace Mackenzie Hupke deep to right-field near the foul line. Independence right fielder Allison Doyle was unable to make a leaping catch and crashed into the fence right after the ball bounced off it.

Doyle was momentarily shaken up by the play while Peters — sensing a three-bagger or maybe a four — motored around the bases. By the time the ball got to the cutoff woman, Peters was halfway between third and home before scoring standing up for her second home run of the season.

After that Hupke and Charles City junior Sami Heyer, who are travel-ball teammates on the Southeast Iowa All-Stars, resumed their pitching duel, which the latter ace won after striking out 11 in a two-hit shutout.

Heyer improved her pitching record to 18-1 while the Comets improved to 25-2.

Hupke fell to 15-2 while yielding four hits in six innings. The Mustangs are now 23-3.

Comet leadoff hitter Lisabeth Fiser had two hits, but after 32 successful stolen base attempts, Fiser was thrown out for first time this season — though many fans from the center-field bleacher vantage thought it was a “phantom tag” that got her.

The Comets didn’t get their usual pyrotechnics from their top part of their lineup as seniors Tayler Schmidt and Ciana Sonberg, who recently hit back-to-back homers in two straight games, were both held homerless as well as hitless. But Schmidt at second base and Sonberg at third both backed up Heyer with some stellar defense on several balls hit hard on the ground by the Mustangs.

Independence previously lost to Charles City in the semifinal round of last season’s Class 4A regional. Both teams were originally scheduled to play on May 25 before the game got washed out.

“We’re glad that we were able to work things out with their coaching staff to reschedule this game,” said Bohlen, whose team is due to face several highly ranked Class 5A teams next weekend at a two-day tournament at the University of Iowa. “That’s how these kids are going to get better … facing competition like this.”