Luther beats Coe in highest-scoring game in IIAC tourney history

CEDAR RAPIDS - When Coe and Luther match up on the softball field, the games tend to be tight and the runs few. In fact, the teams scored a combined 21 runs in their three meetings this season, so you had to figure a low-scoring game on Sunday.

Far from it.

Norse juniors Kelsey Rose and Katie Wieland each homered in a seven-run fourth inning to help No. 11 Luther outlast ninth-ranked Coe, 15-11, and win the Iowa Conference tournament Sunday at Clark Field.

'We're not used to playing Coe and having either team score runs,” Luther Coach Renae Hartl said. 'I think it was just staying within our strike zone and within what our batters' plans were.”

It was the second-straight tournament championship for Hartl and Luther (30-6), and the fourth in five years. Each team homered three times and the 26 combined runs are the most for any game in the history of the tournament.

With both teams saving their pitching aces for a possible winner-take-all afternoon tilt, the noon pitchers had just 12 combined starts between them. Luther scored in each of the first three innings and chased Coe's Maliah Fligg in the third before an out was recorded. Trailing 5-2, Coe began the bottom of the third with four straight hits off Luther starter Topanga Skiles, including a two-run homer from senior Nicole Gentile - her 11th this season. Skiles was replaced by lefty Annie Versnick (4-1), who surrendered a pair of RBI singles to Coe's Taylor Riedl and McCall Meade for a 6-5 Kohawks lead.

Luther snatched the lead right back at 7-6 in the top of the fourth with a two-run blast from Rose off Coe reliever Arran Weeces (13-5).

'I knew with a runner on that we had to make something happen,” Rose said. 'Get a spark going.”

Wieland, who prepped at Cedar Rapids Prairie, extended the Norse lead to 10-6 with a towering three-run shot over the left field fence. Rose and Wieland both finished with a game-high four RBIs.

'When you have a battle like this, you have to go up to the plate ready to deliver,” Wieland said.

Staked to a 12-6 lead, Hartl handed the ball to star pitcher Becca Girvan to begin the fourth inning. Girvan - the presumed starter should an elimination game have been necessary - wasn't her usual dominant self but never lost the lead. She finished the final four innings, yielded six hits and four earned runs, walked seven and struck out three.

'It was a good position to come in when you have a six-run lead,” said Girvan, an All-American in 2012. 'It was nice that we could hold on to it.”

Kristen Winter, who prepped at Cedar Rapids Xavier, reached base four times and scored three runs, including a two-run home run in the fifth inning for Luther.

Coe eliminated Simpson, 9-2, earlier in the day to advance to the Luther game. Senior Abby Flannagan followed up her three-run home run against Simpson by scoring three runs and reaching base all five times against Luther. The former West Delaware prep had three walks, a single, and her eighth home run. Danielle Schlotterbeck also homered for Coe, which at 36-7 is almost assuredly in the NCAA tournament field.

'We're excited to see what happens Monday as far as where we go,” Coe Coach Bob Timmons said.