John Hirl, Announcer
One of the biggest stories going into this year’s Class 1A State Championship Tournament was the potential rematch between Kee High and Akron-Westfield in the Championship game. The Spoiler Savages of Sigourney dashed any hope of that happening as they defeated Akron-Westfield, 7-3, Monday afternoon in the 1st Round of the State Tourney.
Sigourney (23-11) came into the contest as a 7-Seed and heavy underdog to the 2-Seed Westerners of Akron-Westfield (35-3). However, that didn’t stop the Savages from playing with confidence and composure the whole game. It started in the 1st inning when, after a shutdown inning defensively, the Savages jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after Autum Barthelman hit in her sister Summer to score the first run of the game for the Savages. Sigourney would go on to score a couple more runs in the 1st to push it to 3-0 Savages after 1. The Westerners would strike back, however, with a pair of runs in the 3rd. The Savages would enter the 4th with a 3-2 lead and exit with a 6-2 lead after nice RBI’s by Summer Barthelman and Kendall Striegel and some costly errors committed by the Westerners. Akron Westfield added a run in the 5th and Sigourney put another one on the board in the 6th to make the score 7-3 going into the 7th and final inning. Kendall Striegel set down the Westerners in order to end the 7th and put a cap on a terrific day for her in the circle where she allowed just 3 earned runs against a team that boasted 4 of the top 5 hitters in the tournament for Class 1A. The many Sigourney fans that made the trip to Rogers Sports Complex erupted after the final out was recorded as their team continued its improbable postseason run.
Next the Savages play the 3-Seed in the Class 1A tournament, Clarkesville (28-2), on Thursday at 7:30 PM on Diamond 2 at Rogers Sports Complex. The Savages will look to pull of yet another upset this postseason when they take on an Indians squad that went undefeated in conference play in the Iowa Star Conference and posses an outstanding freshman pitcher Kori Wedeking who went 22-1 this year with an ERA of 0.69. The No Coast Network will have coverage of the Class 1A State Semifinal game starting with game time tentatively set for 7:30 PM. The pregame show is set for around 7:15 on 104.9 FM KBOE, kboeradio.com, and the KBOE mobile app with John Hirl and Mitch Eslick.
