A late comeback wasn’t enough for #3 Mid-Prairie to keep their state championship hopes alive on Tuesday as they fell to the #14 New Hampton Chickasaws 4-3 in the state quarterfinals in Ft. Dodge. New Hampton got one run in the first inning with two outs when Karly Fitzgerald singled in Jenn Ankrom. The Chickasaws made it 3-0 in the third with two more two out runs, it was Fitzgerald doing the damage again driving in a pair with an RBI single.
Offensively the Golden Hawks couldn’t get anything going against freshman pitcher Jessica Crooks through the first five innings as she turned the Hawks away at the plate without a hit until the sixth inning, allowing just two total baserunners. In the sixth inning Mid-Prairie would get their first hit, and string together three straight loading the bases, but were still unable to break through on the scoreboard.
Their season on life support, the Hawks rallied in the seventh to tie it with three runs, the big blow of the inning a one out, two RBI single from Michelle Erwin that tied the game at three. New Hampton had one more answer for Mid-Prairie in the bottom half as Raelyn Websiter smacked a double to left with one out. After a fly out to center Jenn Ankrom cranked a ball to the wall in left, Erwin made a great play to get to the ball and put a glove on it but her momentum was too much causing her to collide with the left field fence and the ball to pop out, allowing the winning run to cross the plate. After the game Coach Justin Lutjen talked about his team’s effort and their late rally.
“You know unfortunately I think that we were just getting out ahead and we weren’t being patient with our at bats, and my hats off to New Hampton, they earned it they and their pitcher thew well, and like I said it was nothing that we weren’t expecting and it’s nothing we couldn’t handle it’s just unfortunately we couldn’t get the bats going until the sixth inning,” Lutjen said. “Sometimes, that’s just the way games go.”
Olivia Lugar took the loss for Mid-Prairie going 6 2/3 innings allowing four runs, two of them earned, walking three, and striking out three. Crooks got the win for New Hampton going seven innings, allowing six hits three runs, walking three and striking out two. Mid-Prairie is now 30-11 on the year and will be consolation action today against East Marshall at 10AM. You can hear that game live on AM and FM KCII and KCIIradio.com today with pregame at 9:30.