A year later, Iowa Western got payback against Crowder College.

It means a trip to Florida for the Lady Reivers, and for Crowder, it meant a little more time to study for finals.

Iowa Western Community College, from Council Bluffs, pulled out two victories over Crowder College Thursday in the District K playoff game, winning 4-2 and 7-3.

The losses end the season for the No. 14 ranked Lady Roughriders, while Iowa Western advances to the NJCAA World Series May 15-18 in Plant City, Fla.

That was exactly where Crowder College was heading last spring when the team went to Council Bluffs and won two straight games to advance to the World Series.

“Iowa Western has a lot of great hitters,” said Crowder coach Brandi Arthur. “They hardly ever bunt and when you pitch to them and don’t get the ball down you pay. Iowa Western was better today. They outplayed us.

“I was a little surprised we didn’t hit better. We played them before and we won 11-2. They beat us 7-4 and we won 11-4, so I was hoping we would score more runs. With runners in scoring position, we didn’t get the hit and they did.”

In the first game, Crowder jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning against Iowa Western (51-11).  In the top of the first inning — Crowder was the visitors — Cassie Martin reached on an error and then moved up on Jessica Marble’s single. Richelle VanGennip then tripled to bring both runners home.

That was the end of Crowder’s scoring.

The Lady Reivers cut the lead in half in the bottom of the second inning. Samantha Buchanan singled and scored on Samantha Tiefenthaler’s double.

In the third inning, Crowder got in a jam when runners were on the corners with no outs. Kelsey Meyers then lined a rocket to the left side of the infield, but Marble snared the liner and threw to first base for a double play. Jenna Dell came through with a two-out hit with a double to the gap to score Toni Dance, making it 2-2.

In the top half of the inning, Iowa Western got out of a jam after catching a Crowder runner off third base for the final out of the inning.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Iowa Western scored twice to put the game away, doing so with two outs.

Katie Lefler opened the inning with a single to center field. Mona Horner then followed with a single to left field. Dance laid down a sacrifice bunt to move runners over to second and third base, respectively. Crowder looked to escape the jam with a pop fly, making it two outs. Meyers, the power-hitting catcher, then drew a walk to load the bases.

Then, a passed ball on a pitch to Dell brought home Lefler for the go-ahead run. To add injury to insult, Dell collected her third hit of the game, an RBI single to score Horner, making it 4-2.

Crowder (51-10) had a chance to tie the game in the top of the seventh, but an unlucky bounce hurt the team. Olivia Baldwin and Alaina Burkhart each singled to open the seventh for the Lady Roughriders. Then, a double play on a ground ball to third base killed the rally. Then, a second straight ground ball to third base ended the game.

Iowa Western 7, Crowder 4

The second game was very similar to the first in the sense that Crowder got on the board early and then watched the No. 20 Lady Reivers take the lead back to secure a win.

Crowder, the home team in the second game, fell behind 1-0 in the top of the first inning. After two straight strikeouts to open the inning, Meyers hit a solo home run.

Crowder tied the game in the bottom of the first inning. Martin singled and moved to second base on Cassie Kissler’s sac bunt. Martin stole third base and on the throw the ball went into left field and Martin scored easily.

The Lady Roughriders went up 2-1 in the second inning when Katie Rackliff hit a two-out RBI double to score VanGennip.

Errors plagued Crowder in the third inning and gave Iowa Western the lead.

Dance scored on a fielding error on the infield, while Meyers came home on a fielding error in the outfield.

The Lady Roughriders, as they did in the first inning, came back to tie the game in the third inning.

Martin reached on a bunt single to open the inning. Another sacrifice bunt by Kissler moved Martin into scoring position.

With two outs, Marble got an infield single to left field, tying the game at 3-3.
Iowa Western scored four runs between the fourth and sixth inning to secure the victory.

Tiefenthaler, the starting pitcher in both games, had a one-out double in the fourth inning. She went to third base on a ground out. Iowa Western once again took advantage of two-out hitting. Dance was hit by a pitch, before Casey Lucas delivered an RBI single, making it 4-3.

Meyers followed with a single to load the bases with two outs. Then, Dell, the hero of the first game, got a two-run single to right field that fell just beyond the infield grass.

Two hits turned a tie game into a 6-3 deficit for Crowder.

The Lady Reivers scored their final run in the sixth. Dance singled and moved to second base on a sac bunt. A wild pitch moved her to third base, before Dell singled to drive in her third run of the game, making it 7-3.

Crowder had runners on base, but couldn’t get the big hit in the second game. The Lady ’Riders had runners at third base and second base in the fourth inning, but they were both stranded. In the fifth inning, Marble was stranded after a two-out double. Marble and VanGennip had singles in the final inning.