Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Remember when West High was stuck in a five-game losing streak and slogging through a 3-11 start to the season?

The Women of Troy certainly don’t.

West High put the memory of its early season struggles further in the past on Tuesday running its winning streak to seven with a sweep of Waterloo East in at Mississippi Valley Conference doubleheader in Iowa City.

The Women of Troy won the opener 9-5 and completed the sweep with a 6-3 win in the nightcap to improve to 13-12 on the season with its 10th win in its last 11 games.

“It feels like that was a long time ago,” West High senior catcher Kaitlyn Fangmann said of the early struggles. “That’s behind us and now it’s just really fun and we are all meshing together. You can tell we are having fun on the field.”

The fun for West High started with pounding eight home runs and scoring 25 runs in a doubleheader sweep of Waterloo West back on June 8.

Since the Women of Troy have been nearly unbeatable.

West High split a doubleheader with 5A eight-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy last week and followed by winning four straight games to capture the title at the prestigious Fort Dodge Tournament at Harlan Rogers Sports Complex over the weekend.

Included in the 4-0 weekend in Fort Dodge were wins over 2A No. 15 BCLUW, 5A No. 11 Dowling and a 4-2 win over the host Dodgers in the title game.

“I think we are playing like the team at the beginning of the season that we thought we would be,” West High coach Justin Lutjen said. “It took us a little while to put the pieces together and now I think we are playing a lot of kids and it’s all clicking.”

West High kept the fun and the winning going on Tuesday, banging out 23 hits in the doubleheader while improving to 8-9 in MVC play.

“I feel like we have come a long way so far,” Klosterman said. “I think the tournament this weekend really motivated us and got us a lot more confident that we can compete with any team out there.”

Waterloo East (7-21, 4-14) took an early lead on a solo home run by Kaylee Hanks in the first inning of the opener but West High answered back quickly.

West High scored three runs in the first and two more in the second and never let the Trojans pull even.

Klosterman had three hits in the opener and senior center fielder Taleah Smith had a three-run triple in the fifth inning that broke the game open.

“At the beginning of the year when we were down we kind of rolled over,” Klosterman said. “We are doing a lot better job of coming back and having confidence that we can win any game.”

West High didn’t need a rally in the nightcap.

The Women of Troy scored four runs in the third inning and never trailed behind a complete game from junior Kylie Heisdorffer.

Heisdorffer allowed three runs, one earned, on seven hits and struck out seven while improving to 7-6 on the season.

“Defensively we have cleaned it up a little bit, our pitching has been really good and our bats are coming alive,” Lutjen said. “We are just having a lot of fun right now and you play better when you are having fun and you aren’t pressing and we pressed a lot early.”

West High got key contributions from a pair of eighth graders in the nightcap as Cynthia Hull had two hits and scored a run and Miranda Jones had a pair of hits and drove in a run.

Darby Donovan doubled and scored in the four-run fourth and Smith had an RBI single in a two-run West High sixth.

“I feel like we are working as a team more,” Klosterman said. “We have a lot of new girls this year so it took a little while to get us working together but I think it’s going a lot better now.”

Game 1

Waterloo East            121  001  0  –  5  12  0

West High                  320  031  x  –  9  15  3

W – Abby Henderson                         L – Leah Frost

2B – ICW: Cynthia Hull, Kaitlyn Fangmann, Skylar Ryan. WE: Addy Grimmett

3B – ICW: Taleah Smith

HR – WE: Kaylee Hanks

Game 2

Waterloo East            000  200  1  –  3  9  4

West High                  004  002  x  –  6  8  2

W – Kylie Heisdorffer            L – Kenidi Adams

2B – ICW: Brooke Klosterman, Darby Donovan

3B – WE: Brooke Meighan