Comets club 4 homers in softball sweep of Indians

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

WAUKON — To paraphrase the late great Jack Brickhouse … “Exhale, Comet fans!”

Fresh off their first defeat of the season to an upstart Cedar Falls team, the Charles City Comets bounced back with their third Northeast Iowa Conference doubleheader sweep in as many tries when they dropped the Waukon Indians twice by scores of 10-0 and 7-6.

During the sweep, Charles City clubbed four home runs — two from senior Tayler Schmidt in the first game.

Eighth-grader Rachel Chambers also homered in the first game, and Ashlyn Hoeft — another Comet who will be a freshman this fall — homered in the second game where she had three hits.

But it’s one thing to wield the longball; it’s another to become a victim of it.

In the bottom of the seventh in the second game, Annika Headington hit a grand-slam off Schmidt, who was amidst her second long-relief stint of the day. The blast to right-center field suddenly drew the Indians within 1 (7-6).

Comet junior Sami Heyer, who was the winning pitcher in the first game and started the second, came back into the circle after Headington’s homer and managed to get the final two outs of the game as Waukon had the tying run at third base.

For Charles City, which dropped a spot to No. 3 in the Class 4A rankings released Thursday by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, the victories improved its overall record to 7-1 and 6-0 in the NEIC.

After being held scoreless for eight innings going back to the shutout loss to Cedar Falls the day before, the Comets finally got that elusive two-out hit with a runner in scoring position with Kelby Katcher’s RBI single to put Charles City up 1-0 in the second inning of the first game.

The Comets would go on to score several unearned runs before the homers by Schmidt and Chambers.

Comet senior Payton Reams had three hits in the first game.

In the second game, Comet leadoff hitter Lisabeth Fiser had three singles, two runs scored and an RBI.