No panic here: Linn-Mar reaches its first state semifinal since 2007

FORT DODGE — For four innings, nobody was laughing at this knock-knock joke.

“We knew we were knocking on the door,” Linn-Mar Coach Maddie Colbert said. “We just needed to beat it down.”

The Lions finally did.

Second-ranked Linn-Mar scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, tacked on three insurance tallies in the sixth and pulled away from No. 8 Pleasant Valley, 5-1, in a Class 5A quarterfinal at the state softball tournament Monday evening at the Rogers Sports Complex.

“We knew we were getting people on (base). We just had to get that big hit,” said Emma Barnes, who capped the late onslaught with a two-run home run. “Our energy level stayed up. It didn’t die down.”

Linn-Mar (34-6) finds itself on the winners’ half of the bracket for the first time since 2007. The Lions will face No. 7 Cedar Falls (31-9) — a 12-11 winner over No. 3 Southeast Polk — in a 5A semifinal at 12:45 Wednesday afternoon.

“I didn’t pack all of this stuff for just two days,” Colbert said.

The Lions created traffic galore on the basepaths throughout. They stranded eight runners through the first four innings.

“It’s hard,” said pitcher Emily Koranda, who struck out 12 in a two-hitter and improved to 18-3. “You want to come out at the beginning, bust it open and put pressure on the other team.”

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“We knew we were right there,” Colbert said. “They were saying, ‘This is the inning ... no, THIS is the inning.”

Pleasant Valley (30-10) took a 1-0 lead on Ella Rubel’s two-out RBI single in the top of the third.

Linn-Mar’s go-ahead rally in the fifth started with two outs and nobody aboard. Barnes and Mallory Palmer hit back-to-back singles before a pair of errors played into it.

Karsyn Michael’s 20-foot blooper plated the second run.

“We do that a lot,” Palmer said. “Sometimes we struggle to get on base for a while.”

Koranda pulled the team together before it batted in the bottom of the sixth.

The message: More runs, please.

Koranda started it herself with a double, then Annie Cassidy followed with another to make it 3-1. Then it was Barnes with the dagger, a two-run blast just beyond the center-field fence.

“I was just looking for one that I could see well and hit,” Barnes said.

“Nobody expected this at the beginning of the season; we were underrated. It’s fun; we’re proving ourselves.”

The insurance collected, Koranda finished it off, retiring the final 12 batters she faced.

“All of my pitches felt good,” she said. “(Catcher) Kaylie (Alvey) and I were on the same page, and I was hitting spots.”

Linn-Mar 5, Pleasant Valley 1

Class 5A State Quarterfinal, at Fort Dodge

Pleasant Valley 001 000 0 — 1 2 3

Linn-Mar 000 023 x — 5 11 2

Macyn Bischoff and Kasey Kane. Emily Koranda and Kaylie Alvey. W — Koranda (17-3). L --Bischoff (16-7). HR — LM: Emma Barnes (5).

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com