A great senior class leads Lisbon softball team back to state tournament

LISBON — The six senior starters for the Lisbon Lions have played a ton of softball in their prep careers. A ton.

Trying to find some good factoids to potentially be put into the official program for next week’s state tournament in Fort Dodge, Lisbon Activities Director Brandon Horman added up specifically how many combined games go into this particular version of “ton.”

If his math is correct, it’s 842. Peyton Robinson, Kali Nelson, Ella Clark, Ryleigh Allgood, Blair Baltes and Gabi Moehlman, you’ve done a lot of work.

And done it well. An 11-1, five-inning win over South Winneshiek in a Class 2A regional final Tuesday night at Bob Bunting Field means it’s six consecutive state tourney appearances for Lisbon and either four or five straight state tournaments for these seniors, depending on if they played varsity as an eighth-grader.

“It’s very special. We’re all just very thankful we’ve had the opportunity to go, since there are so many teams that don’t get to go,” said first baseman Clark. “That’s a lot, that’s a ton of games we’ve played. You don’t really think about it until at the end, but this was our last time playing here, and it’s crazy to me that I’ll never play here again. It went by so fast. You blinked, and it was gone.”

You blinked, and this game was gone.

Fourth-ranked Lisbon (34-7) scored three times in the second inning and twice more in the third to take a 5-0 lead. Six runs in the bottom of the fifth ended things early.

Robinson had a walk, a couple of hits and an RBI. Clark had two singles and scored twice. Baltes had a walk and two-run single, Allgood a walk, a two-run single and threw a complete-game two-hitter.

A lot of senior damage.

“We live softball, and these girls, we stay together tight,” said shortstop Robinson. “If we ever split apart, it’s all gone. But just staying together and being a team, our chemistry, our girls fought for each other. You just keep fighting every single day. Because we know what our end goal is, and that’s a state championship.”

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Photos: Lisbon defeats South Winneshiek to advance to state

It’ll have to come in a different class, considering Lisbon moved up this season after making it to state in 1A the previous five years. Players and legendary head coach Bob Bunting were asked their thoughts on the difference between 1A and 2A.

“It’ll be tougher,” Bunting said. “I think the pitching is better. Normally it is. But you know 1A has really gotten better. You know, 1A you used to go out and play about nine years ago or so, and it was like why are we classify it because it was ugly. But teams have gotten better, pitchers have gotten better.”

This was the first regional final game in 24 years for South Winneshiek (21-16), coming after a pair of upset wins earlier in the Warriors’ tournament trailer. Perhaps the enormity of the situation got to South Winn, as it committed six errors that made things too easy on Lisbon.

Britney Hageman’s opposite-field home run to right provided the Warriors’ lone run.

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