At KCII, we’ve been counting down the top 10 sports stories at area high schools in the 2023-2024 academic year. At number one is the Sigourney Savages winning a softball state championship for the first time in school history.
Sigourney softball entered this summer in the middle of a decade of dominance, with nine 20-win seasons since 2012 and three straight with at least 23 wins. That including reaching the state tournament for the second time in three years in 2023.
But all that winning had yet to yield the same type of success at state, with a finish of no better than fourth place. One of the most bitter pills to swallow came in 2023, when the Savages lost to the eventual state champion North Linn 1-0 in extra innings in the Class 1A quarterfinals.
Motivation and anticipation were both sky high as Sigourney returned much of its roster from a team that ultimately finished tied for fifth in Class 1A.
That included two all-state players for this past season in junior catcher Josephine Moore and senior pitcher Carly Goodwin, whose excellence with over 300 strikeouts and a near-perfect 0.19 earned-run average last summer earned her Gatorade Player of the Year honors for Iowa high school softball in 2023-2024.
The Savages started the 2024 season ranked third in the preseason state poll, and after a 5-3 start, winning eight of the next nine games put Sigourney on the path to another excellent campaign.
The Savages finished the regular season with 20 wins, claiming the South Iowa Cedar League championship for a fourth straight year with only one conference loss.
Goodwin’s stellar work in the circle again led the way, yielding another minuscule 0.37 ERA and piling up over 360 strikeouts to finish her career with more than 1,300 Ks.
Sigourney started the playoffs July 10th by rolling past conference rival Iowa Valley 9-0 in the Class 1A Region 8 quarterfinals. But the rest of the postseason would prove to push the Savages to their absolute limits.
After grabbing a first-inning lead against Highland on July 12th in the Region 8 semifinals, Sigourney saw the Huskies rally to tie the game at 1 in the sixth. But a lead-off single by senior Ava Fineran and a big base hit from eighth-grader Devyn Smallwood set up junior Ava Fisch to drive in the winning run with a groundout.
It was the first of back-to-back walk-off wins for the Savages, as four days later, the Region 8 finals with Wapello would be scoreless through the first seven innings. Goodwin and Arrows all-state senior Ada Boysen both had exceptional pitching performances, combining for a whopping 40 strikeouts.
It would be Wapello who broke the scoreless tie on a Boysen triple that drove in the game’s first run. But eighth-grader Ella Bruns reached to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning and scored the tying run after junior Dani Aller reached on an error.
Bruns would ultimately play the hero again for Sigourney when the game reached the bottom of the 11th. After senior Amiya Smallwood reached base to start the inning and found herself at third with two out, the first-year player delivered a base knock up the middle that sent the Savages back to state for the seventh time in program history.
Once they found themselves at Fort Dodge, Sigourney didn’t slow down, starting with the Class 1A state quarterfinals on July 23rd. A game with no runs and no hits in the first five innings against undefeated Remsen St. Mary’s would flip the sixth-ranked Savages’ way after Fisch hit a lead-off triple and later scored on a single by Goodwin.
Senior Erin Dawson provided some much-needed insurance later in the innings with a two-run base hit, and Sigourney would hold off the number-three Hawks to win 3-1.
The next night, the Savages took the early lead in the state semifinals against seventh-ranked Southeast Warren thanks to a Fisch base knock and a sacrifice fly by Moore in the first. But the junior’s biggest blow came in the fifth inning, when she blasted her team-high 11th home run of the season to drive in a pair of runs.
Dawson scored another run and had a two-run double in the sixth to polish off a 6-1 victory and a trip to the state championship game for the first time in school history.
The game’s greatest prize was on the line for Sigourney on July 26th when they took on the number-one-ranked team in Class 1A and the state runner-up in 2023, Martensdale-St Marys.
While her ability as a pitcher would earn her a fourth straight all-state selection on its own merits, Goodwin’s best career season as a hitter was highlighted by her starting the state title game for the Savages on a strong note, blasting her seventh home run of the season in the first inning to put her team on top at the start.
Unfortunately, despite that swing and another strong pitching effort from Goodwin, two runs from Martensdale-St Marys in the second looked like they would hold up. Sigourney found itself down going into the final inning, but what transpired next was the stuff of legend.
Goodwin led off the top of the seventh with a single, and while the next two batters were retired, Smallwood extended the game by reaching on a sacrifice bunt attempt. It would be Fineran who saved the day, blasting a base hit to left center that scored both runners to put the Savages up 3-2.
While both the potential tying and winning runs reached for the Blue Devils in the bottom half, Goodwin stranded them to finish off her third victory of the state tournament and give Sigourney the Class 1A crown.
Goodwin received All-State Tournament honors after allowing only four runs in 21 innings and racking up 30 strikeouts. Moore and Fineran also made the all-tournament team.
Fisch joined the trio in earning all-state accolades, while Savages head coach Shelly Streigle was named the Class 1A Coach of the Year by the Iowa Girls Coaches Association.
Congratulations to Coach Streigle and the entire Sigourney softball program on their first-ever state title and being KCII’s Number One Area Sports Story. Find the all stories from the countdown online at KCIIradio.com.