ADM sophomore Makenna Pitlick and freshman Aubrey Noring

The Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Softball Team is moving on to the Class 4A State Semifinal game tomorrow, after the bats woke up later in the first-round game to defeat Dallas Center-Grimes 4-1 in 9 innings on Monday.

It was the 4th seeded Mustangs against the 5th-ranked Tigers from the Iowa Central Field at the Harlan Rogers Sports Complex in Fort Dodge, as DCG sophomore Jenah Gray gave the Mustangs the lead early with a powerful solo home run to left in the bottom of the 1st inning for a 1-0 advantage. That score remained until the top of the 6th inning, when ADM leadoff batter junior Lauren Hagedorn blasted a solo homer to left off of DCG sophomore Tessa Jones to tie the game at 1-1.

The game would go into extra innings, as it was a pitching duel between Jones and Hagedorn, but in the top of the 9th inning, senior Madi James came through with a leadoff double, then sophomore Makenna Pitlick had an RBI Double to score James and give the Tigers their first lead at 2-1. Freshman Aubrey Noring would connect as the next batter up to get another run across for ADM, which was Kate Darling, courtesy runner for Pitlick, to make it 3-1. Noring came all the way in to score from first base after senior Aniston Tollari hit a ball deep to left, then an error on left-fielder Jenna Morrison who couldn’t corral the ball, to extend the advantage to 4-1.

The Mustangs tried to rally in the bottom of the 9th inning, by getting two runners on, but stranded them both, as ADM secured the 4-1 victory. Pitlick knew her RBI Double was a difference maker.

“Before I hit it, I was like ‘here we go, for my team, for my team,’ and then after that I was like ‘oh yeah, we got this,’ and then we just kept on hitting and hitting (and) we ended up scoring four runs, so that was great.”

The losing pitcher was DCG’s Jones, who went all 9 innings, allowing 10 hits, 4 runs, walked a batter, and captured 7 strikeouts, while the winning pitcher was Hagedorn, who also went the distance of 9 innings, allowed 7 hits, 1 run, and struck out 7 batters.

The Mustangs fall to 33-8 and will be taking on Cedar-Rapids Xavier today at 10am, with the broadcast from Raccoon Valley Radio on KDLS 94.3/99.7 FM and AM 1310, and the Tigers improve to 28-8 on the season and face the 8th-seeded Pella Dutch tomorrow at 10am on the Channel Seeds Field at the Harlan Rogers Sports Complex. Raccoon Valley Radio will carry the broadcast on K107.9 KKRF.