50 Iowa moments since Title IX: Iowa softball returns to Women’s College World Series in 2001

Moment No. 33: Hawkeyes back on top stage with ‘group of women that had not been there’

May. 22, 2022 6:00 am

Iowa Title IX series. The Gazette is counting down the top 50 moments in Iowa Hawkeyes women’s athletics history in the 50 days leading up to the 50th anniversary of Title IX in June.

Editor’s note: This is 18th in a series counting down the Top 50 moments in Iowa Hawkeyes women’s athletics history in the 50 days leading up to the 50th anniversary of Title IX in June.

Longtime Iowa softball coach Gayle Blevins was in a position in 2001 that she hadn’t been in for a while.

Four years removed from three straight years of going to the Women’s College World Series in the 1990s, Blevins had “a group of women that had not been there.”

The drought ended that year.

The Hawkeyes went to their fourth Women’s College World Series in program history in 2001.

“It’s a real special memory,” Blevins told The Gazette earlier in May. “You never forget those times.”

The Hawkeyes’ 49 wins that season remains tied for the fourth-most in program history. They won a Big Ten tournament title and were one win short of a regular-season championship, too.

Iowa was a host for NCAA Regionals for the first time since 1997 — the last time it reached the WCWS — and defeated Illinois State, DePaul and then Notre Dame, twice.

The postseason run came to an abrupt end, though, in the WCWS with 2-0 and 2-1 losses to UCLA and LSU, respectively.