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CEDAR RAPIDS — Nikki Gahring tried to relax, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
“They were wobbling until about the fifth inning,” said Gahring, softball coach at Cedar Rapids Xavier. “We had gone through some tough, tough endings the last couple of years.”
This year, this ending … it’s yet to be written.
Braylen Conlon was spectacular in the circle once again, pitching a one-hitter and retiring the final 14 batters she faced, and top-ranked Xavier broke through with a pair of sixth-inning tallies to outlast No. 15 Bondurant-Farrar, 2-0, in a Class 4A regional final Tuesday night at Bob Erusha Field.
“It feels exactly how I imagined,” Conlon said. “Maybe even better.”
Xavier (37-5) will make its first state-tournament appearance since 2018. The Saints draw Pella (22-12) in a 4A first-rounder at 10 a.m. Monday at the Rogers Sports Complex, Fort Dodge.
“All we wanted was to get a chance,” catcher Katie Pilcher said. “Get to Fort Dodge and hopefully get on a roll.”
Gahring’s uneasiness was understandable. As she said, a couple of tough, tough postseason endings recently. And Bondurant-Farrar’s Chloe Thurlby was Conlon’s equal for most of the game: Xavier was hitless through the first five innings.
No. 9 hitter Callie Luerkens broke the ice, leading off the bottom of the sixth with a solid single to right-center field.
Conlon followed with an infield single, bringing Pilcher — owner of 21 home runs and 55 RBIs — to the plate.
No long ball this time. Instead, a textbook sacrifice bunt.
“Katie is probably the last person you think is going to bunt,” Gahring said. “Get it down and see what happens.”
Pilcher said, “Once Braylen got on, I knew we were going to get it done. If I got the bunt down, we definitely were going to score.”
With runners at second and third and one out, Maddyn Gates hit a hard ground ball to first base.
Luerkens scored, and when the throw home hit Luerkens in the helmet and bounced away, Conlon followed her home.
“I just said, ‘I’m going to hit it,’ said Gates, who transferred from Solon to Xavier in the offseason. ”I trust my mechanics. I was going to execute it.
“I knew we had the pieces. We had to put them together, and that’s what we did tonight.”
Suddenly, the Saints were three outs from Fort Dodge. They came on three consecutive flyouts.
Then, the joyful pile on the infield: ‘“I felt a little smooshed,” Conlon said. “I’m glad (the last pop-up) came to me. It was the perfect end.”
Bound for Western Kentucky University, Conlon (26-0) struck out 11 and walked none. Lydia Martin’s one-out single in the top of the third was the lone baserunner for Bondurant-Farrar (24-10), and she advanced only to second base.
“I wanted to keep them off track, get ahead, challenge them,” said Conlon, who threw 88 pitches, 66 for strikes.
“Braylen attacked all the way,” Pilcher said. “She had to change their eye level. That was important.”
Xavier had runners at the corners with two outs in the bottom of the first inning, but couldn’t cash in. The Saints didn’t have another baserunner until their winning rally in the sixth.
Cedar Rapids Xavier 2, Bondurant-Farrar 0
Class 4A Regional Final, at C.R. Xavier
Bondurant-Farrar 000 000 0 — 0 1 2
C.R. Xavier 000 002 x — 2 2 0
Chloe Thurlby and Madison Mally. Braylen Conlon and Katie Pilcher. W — Conlon (26-0). L — Thurlby (17-8).
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