Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – There isn’t much that will rattle Emma Nibaur on the softball field.

That is an important quality for a pitcher and it served Nibaur well on Wednesday.

Nibaur shook off a pair of Pekin home runs as Class 2A No. 14 Regina held off the Panthers 5-3 in a Region 7 quarterfinal on Wednesday evening in Iowa City.

“She always handles herself really well on the mound,” Regina sophomore catcher Courtney Kessler said of Nibaur. “That’s what you expect from her every pitch, every game.”

Nibaur gave up a solon home run to leadoff hitter Allison Bainbridge in the third and a two-run blast by Alex Parsons in the seventh.

Both times Nibaur responded helping Regina (17-12) advance to the Region 7 semifinals where it will face third-ranked Louisa-Muscatine (20-8) on Friday at 7 p.m. in Letts.

“I don’t really tend to get bothered by that stuff,” Nibaur said of the home runs. “My job is to hit my spots and as long as I am hitting my spots I’m not worried. It didn’t really bother me I was confident and I just needed to attack the next hitter that came up.”

Regina never trailed on Wednesday taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Annie Gahan.

Pekin (9-18) used the long ball to stay within striking distance and cut a four-run Regal lead in half on Parson’s two-run home run to left with one out in the seventh.

Nibaur refused to be shaken.

The junior right-hander quickly struck out Hannah Lucas swinging and got Bainbridge to fly out to right field to end the game.

“You are never happy when somebody hits a home run off of you, never, nobody ever is but she kept her composure she came back and she finished the game,” Regina coach Angela Kessler said. “I am impressed by that.”

Nibaur allowed three runs on six hits while improving to 15-7 on the season.

She struck out 10 and didn’t walk a batter in what was another in a growing list of strong starts for the Regina ace.

“I’m super impressed with how she made adjustments,” Angela Kessler said. “When you’ve never seen a team before it’s hard to know what to pitch and where to go. She had one pitch that didn’t work so well for her but she came back, she fixed it and she adjusted.”

After Bainbridge cut the lead to 2-1 with a solo homer in the third Regina answered with a long ball of its own.

Courtney Kessler launched the first pitch she saw from Pekin starter Brooke Miller well over the fence in left field to give the Regals a 4-2 lead in the fifth.

“It was the first pitch and I really liked it and I swung as hard as I could,” Kessler said. “If it’s a pitch that I know I can handle I am going to swing as hard as I can.”

Leading 4-2 Regina tacked on a run with two outs in the sixth when Gabby Sueppel reached on an error and scored on a double by Jaelynn Ernst.

“We talk about taking every run,” Angela Kessler said. “Every single run, no matter how insignificant you think it is at the time counts. You have to know that every single run always counts.”

That was enough for Nibaur who calmly worked around the one-out home run by Parsons in the ninth.

“My job is to pitch and hit my spots and their job is to hit so I just have to do my job and both times I hit my spots and they hit it over,” Nibaur said. “That’s the game of softball.”

Kessler led Regina with a pair of hits and two RBI while Gahan had two hits and drove in a run. Nibaur scored a run, Ernst drove in a run and Gabby Sueppel had a hit and scored a run.

“You just need to win at this point,” Nibaur said. “It doesn’t matter how you do it you just need to win to keep playing.”

Pekin                          001  000  2  –  3  6  3

Regina                        200  021  x  –  5  7  1

W – Emma Nibaur                  L – Brooke Miller

2B – ICR: Jaelynn Ernst, Courtney Kessler, Annie Gahan. PEK: Taylor Parmenter

HR – ICR: Courtney Kessler. PEK: Allison Bainbridge, Alex Parsons

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