FAIRFIELD — All Lydia Barker needed was a little advice.
Fortunately, she had an older sister and current coach with plenty of knowledge about how to find success on Fairfield High School’s softball diamond.
“There was a tube kind of sticking out and I was kind of rolling my ankle on it a little bit,” Barker said. “My sister said the same thing. She had to play on this field too. She knew it was out there and she knew how to adjust to it.”
After getting the advice from Madeline Barker, Davis County’s all-time winningest softball pitcher, Lydia Barker became unhittable retiring the final 15 Fairfield batters of Thursday night’s Class 3A, Region 8 quarterfinal. While Barker kept the Trojan bats silent, the Mustang bats came alive late putting up three runs in the final two innings to complete a 6-4 comeback win in a thrilling postseason battle of southeast Iowa area squads.
“We’ve had so many games like this all year where it’s been 4-2 or 5-4 where we’ve had to respond,” Davis County head softball coach Joe Rasmussen said. “Hopefully, that’s kind of helping us in the postseason where we’re in games like this more often.”
Davis County put runners on base in every inning, connecting on at least one hit in six of the seven innings against the Trojans. Barker’s double to deep left in the opening inning was the first of 11 hits the Mustangs would rack up in their first postseason victory since walking off with an eight-inning win over Albia in the consolation round of the 2023 State Softball Tournament.
“The girls do a great job of keeping the pressure on,” Rasmussen said. “We try to score at least one run in every inning. The bats came through with clutch hitting. Even just getting outs that drove in runs was big for us.”
Ella Day’s two-run double to right for the Mustangs was answered immediately by Leah Helmick, who hammered a two-run home run over the fence in left field tying the score at 2-2 after one. Alli Batterson singled, reached second on an error, stole third and scored on a wild pitch in the top of the second to put Davis County back on top before Laney Norris gave Fairfield the lead bouncing a two-run single into left field as four consecutive Trojans reached base to open the bottom of the third.
Shortly before and after the two-run hit by Norris, both Lydia and Madeline Barker came out to check on the footing in the pitching circle. After checking on the footing for the second time, and making a small adjustment, Barker struck out Emma Septer before forcing a pair of groundouts to end the inning preventing Fairfield from building on their 4-3 advantage.
“It was just hard for me to throw strikes because I was just kind of off with my footing landing on that tube,” Lydia Barker said. “Once I figured it out and moved over, my rise ball was a bit better. What really worked was my change-up. I threw that almost every pitch for an entire inning at one point.
“I’ve got two all-state pitchers on my coaching staff, so I can rely on them when it comes to pitching,” Rasmussen added.
Fairfield was able to hold the lead over the next two innings, throwing out Lydia Dekraai trying to steal second base in the top of the fifth before pitching around Day’s second double of the contest later in the inning. The Mustangs remained undaunted, instantly starting another rally in the sixth as Ashlyn Olinger connected on a double to deep center to begin the inning.
“I think we knew our season was on the line,” Barker said. “I think that’s what kept us motived every time we came to the plate.”
“We just kept trying to hit the ball and just tried to keep putting runners on base,” Olinger added.
Davis County ultimately took the lead for good later in the inning as a throwing error by freshman shortstop Haylee Eklund allowed courtesy runner Adalyn Hobbs to score the tying run. Two batters later, Paylin Lawson’s sacrifice fly to shallow center brought home Addison McClure, giving Davis County a 5-4 lead.
“The key was that Davis County came out and hit ball really well,” Fairfield head softball coach Bob Bradfield said. “They won the game with their hitting. We helped them out a little bit. They hit it well and our defense did not play well. With those two things, it’s kind of amazing we stayed within two runs.”
Davis County, now 17-10 on the season, heads to Albia to face the fifth-ranked Lady Dees for the third time this season. The Mustangs have yet to score a run off Grace Pence in the two previous South Central Conference meetings this year, falling 6-0 at Albia on a 14-strikeout no-hitter by the Lady Dee junior pitcher on June 2 and 5-0 in Bloomfield on June 23 managing just three hits while striking out just nine times in the rematch.
“Coach (Larry) Achenbach has that team rolling right now. They’re ranked as highly as they are for a reason,” Rasmussen said of Albia. “Grace Pence does a great job pitching, but we’ve done a better job making contact off her each time we’ve faced her. Who knows? Everyone’s 0-0 in the postseason. Whoever wins this third meeting is the one that moves on.”
Fairfield, meanwhile, wraps up a 20-16 season doubling their win total from last summer. The Trojans say goodbye to three of their top four hitters as Lilly Bergren, Olivia Hollander and Norris all played their final games as Fairfield seniors.
“There are not only great hitters, but their leadership is going to be hard to replace,” Bradfield said. “We’ll need a lot of people to step up next year.”