By Douglas Miles

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – There is something about facing Cedar Rapids Kennedy that seems to reveal Liberty’s clutch gene.

Two-plus weeks after sweeping the Cougars with a pair of wins in their final at-bat, the Class 5A 12th-ranked Lightning needed more homefield heroics against Kennedy to keep their season alive.

“Well, I think it shows how tough they are to beat,” Liberty High coach Mike Morrison said after the Lightning scored in each of the final four frames and rallied past the Cougars, 7-6 in eight innings, in a regional semifinal Saturday night at Liberty High School. “Their pitching is fantastic. I think it is more of a credit, probably, to them than it is to us because I just think they are tough to beat. They weren’t going away and fortunately for us, we weren’t either.”

Liberty swept Kennedy at home, 4-3 and 2-1, on June 22 with runs in the bottom of the seventh inning in both games.

This time, Liberty High (23-13) needed to respond to deficits of 4-0 in the fifth inning and 6-3 in the seventh.

“Knowing that we can do it and having confidence in each other,” said Liberty High senior Haileigh Smith, whose eighth-inning single scored junior Haley Schroeder with the game-winning run. “Knowing that we have the girls behind us to pick us up if we didn’t do what we needed to do. Just like that helps take the pressure off of everybody and then also, having experience walking it off against other teams.”

Kennedy (19-20) scored a single run in both the first and third innings, then tacked on two more in the fifth against Liberty starting pitcher Ella Wetjen for a 4-0 lead.

Despite the early struggles, Wetjen continued to fight and never left the game.

“That first inning, nothing seemed to be going my way,” said Wetjen, who “I was reminded that I have such good defense behind me, so I just decided at that point to just start attacking the zone and (Liberty High junior catcher) Mischa Reiners behind the plate, she figured out what to call to get them off balance and once we started going low in the zone, they just started to do what we wanted. From there, it was just the defense behind me. I don’t even know how many double plays, diving plays that we had. It was crazy.”

Trailing 4-0, Liberty High capitalized on a pair of Kennedy errors in the bottom of the fifth inning to score two runs, then pulled with 4-3 after six frames when Reiners singled home Smith.

Liberty High hoped it could get to its final at-bat behind by just that one run, but the Cougars extended their advantage to 6-3 with two runs in the top of the seventh inning.

Morrison’s message to his team was clear.

“Put up a cooked number,” Smith said. “That’s it. Just keep battling. Know you can do this.”

After Liberty High loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh inning, Smith got the scoring started with a single that scored Ella Kate Fort from third base.

Still down by two runs and down to their last out, Reiners tied the game at 6-6 with a single that scored Schroeder and freshman Kelsey Kaut.

“Base hit scores two runs,” Reiners said. “Keep it plain and simple. Ball up the middle.”

Wetjen allowed a pair of Kennedy baserunners in the top of the eighth inning, but her nifty grab of a ground ball began a crucial double play that helped get her offense back to the plate with the 6-6 tie still intact.

Liberty High’s first two batters in the eighth inning failed to reach base.

Schroeder began the game-winning rally by drawing a walk and advanced to second base on a single from Kaut.

Schroeder raced home with the winning run when Smith’s single up the middle was not immediately corralled by the Kennedy infielder.

“I just saw a ball that I knew I could hit and I knew that I just had to put it in play,” said Smith, who finished the game with four hits and drove in two runs. “Everything else would fall into place. The softball gods would be there for me and my teammates would do what they needed to do to get that run across and win it for us.”

Reiners ended the game with two hits and three RBI, while both Schroeder and Fort scored twice.

Wetjen (8-1) allowed 12 hits and walked six in eight innings, but outlasted the Kennedy offensive attack and did just enough to earn the win and get her team to Tuesday’s regional final at No. 7 Muscatine (30-5).

It will be a rematch of last year’s 5A regional final, where the Lightning fell at Muscatine, 9-1. Turn the tables this year, and Liberty High will advance to the state tournament for the first time in the program’s six-year history.

“We are just going to have to keep going hard,” Wetjen said. “We play together, we play hard and I feel like we are pretty unstoppable. We are ready to have our revenge for this year and go back and go to state.”

CR Kennedy               101 020 20 –  6  12  4

Liberty High               000 021 31 –  7   9   2

W – Ella Wetjen                            L – Lily Knutson

2B – CRK: Lily Knutson, Teagan Chrisman. ICL: Haileigh Smith.

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