No. 1 Benton falls to Charles City in regional final

VAN HORNE - Benton Community took the field Tuesday night in great shape.

The Bobcats lost just six games this season, won a conference title and are fresh off a state championship run last season.

Yet things just didn't go their way Tuesday.

Top-ranked Benton fell to No. 14 Charles City 2-1 at home in a Class 4A regional final at home, ending its season shy of yet another state tournament berth.

'We've been in big games before, but we didn't play like it tonight,” Benton Coach Eric Stenberg said. 'We played scared. And the kids didn't play like they had been there before, so we weren't making good decisions … I thought that was the key. We just weren't ourselves, being aggressive, and for whatever reason we just weren't ready to go.”

The thing that bothered Stenberg the most, he said, was the fact that they didn't give up an earned run. In the third inning, Charles City's Payton Reams scored on a wild pitch, then Tayler Schmidt did the same after a wild throw down to third base to give the Comets a 2-0 lead.

The Bobcats certainly had their chances to get back in the game. In the fourth inning, pitcher Anna Stenberg laid down a bunt to bring in a run. And, several other times, Benton had runners in place to equalize the score.

For whatever reason, though, it just wasn't in the cards.

'We had girls in scoring position,” Coach Stenberg said. 'We had some base running errors, we threw the ball around a little bit, we just didn't get the timely hit. All year long we've kind of had the timely hit to kind of bring us out of things. We just couldn't get that tonight.”

Now, Charles City had a tremendous season as well, and is absolutely worthy of a state tournament bid. It went 32-6 on the year, and didn't lose back-to-back games until June 30.

The Comets will head to the state tournament in Fort Dodge on Tuesday, and will likely be able to put up a good fight against the state's top-eight teams.

For the Bobcats, though, Stenberg said the loss stings even more because he felt they left a lot out on the field.

'It's just tough right now, seeing the girls this upset because we didn't play the way we're capable of playing, and to lose like that, it does hurt,” Stenberg said.

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