Ballard scored six runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, but it wasn’t enough to complete the comeback as the Pella High softball team advanced to the Class 4A Region 4 final with a 9-8 win Saturday night in a game heard live on our KNIA2 stream at www.kniakrls.com.
The Lady Dutch took a 4-0 lead halfway through the game on a pair of Ally Almond 2-RBI singles, and built a 9-2 lead thanks to a Kinzi Van Wyk solo homer and Elly Cairney two-run bomb.
But the 13th-ranked Bombers didn’t go easily, eventually putting the tying run on base in the seventh before Maddie Parks relieved Van Wyk to strike out Kalree Ahrenholz and end the game.
Pella coach Teresa Thompson would like to forget about the seventh inning, but says they did enough before that to get the win.
“Our girls hit the ball and did everything they needed to those first six innings, and then kept fighting and scored more in the seventh inning.  And then we had a few hiccups and nerves, and they had a home run and we did a little of everything (bad) in that inning, but we still had one run more.”
Pella advances to the Regional Final on Tuesday night, where they’ll play Little Hawkeye Conference rival Dallas Center-Grimes.  The Fillies upset top-ranked Carlisle 7-6 on Saturday.

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