Event Spotlight: Day 2 of HFL West Fall Championships Sets Up Finales on Sunday

The Heart of America Fall Fastpitch League (HFL)’s West Fall Championships continued Saturday in College Station, Texas on the march to Sunday’s title games and the nine bids to The Alliance Fastpitch National Championships next summer.

The top three finishers in each age group will get bids and by the end of Saturday four bids were already finalized, at 18U the Aces Fastpitch and Iowa Premier Gold teams qualified and at 16U Aces Fastpitch and Tulsa Elite locked in their trips to Oklahoma City in July 2021.

Looking ahead to Sunday, the semi-finals and finals will be live streamed with a five-camera production with play-by-play provided by Tori Vidales, the former two-time Texas A&M All-American.

Click HERE to find the results of games and schedules for Sunday action

Here are some thoughts and observations….

* The bat of catcher Jesse Blaine of Iowa Premier set the tone for the start of the day as she had five RBIs in her team’s 12-1 win at 8 am.

Blaine, ranked in the Top 20 of the 2021 Extra Elite 100, hit a grand slam that not only cleared the 220-foot fence at Texas A&M’s beautiful Davis Diamond stadium, it also cleared the camera tower behind the wall in left centerfield.

That came in a tight game between the Oklahoma Bombers and the Iowa Premier as the Bombers jumped to a quick 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first thanks to Maveryck Lightfoot, the third baseman/shortstop, who drew a walk, took second on a throwdown to first, then stole third and came home when the throw went into left field.

Talk about instant offense. More on Lightfoot: she helped her team win its opening game against FFS 11-3 with a couple RBIs and several plays at third base, taking some line drives down the line and making them outs. Really impressive day on offense and defense for the junior.

Back to the action: Iowa Premier scored a run in the top of the second and the score remained 2-1 until the top of the 5^th when Premier tied the game and went ahead on a Blaine flair to right field that fell in and plated the go-ahead run.

Here’s video of the play:

* Aces & Iowa Premier Battle for 18U Supremacy: As mentioned earlier, both the 18U Aces and Iowa Premier teams had earned bids thanks to unbeaten bracket play heading into the 5 pm game at Davis Diamond, but there was a lot of pride on the line as two of the premier teams in the Midwest faced off.

It’s not like they haven’t played recently: Iowa Premier topped the Aces last week in the championship game of the Team 1 Showcase.

As Aces head coach Ryan Taylor said later in the evening regarding his relationship with fellow HFL administrator and coach Greg Dickel of Iowa Premier, “We can get into it on the field and be really competitive and then shake hands afterwards and walk away.”

At Davis Diamond Stadium, where Texas A&M competes, two  Extra Elite100 pitchers faced off as Mac Morgan (2021, #4 overall, Arizona State) faced off against Josey Marron (2022, #96, Mississippi State).

Unlike last week, when Marron led the Iowa Premier to the6-3  win over the Aces, Morgan and her team got the big lead early and never looked back at the HFL Championship.

The Aces scored four in the bottom of the 1^st highlighted by a three-run home run by Macy Miles, the 2022 pitcher/infielder who is the daughter of current Kansas football head coach Les Miles, Macy’s homer smacked off the left field scoreboard beyond the left field fall to give Taylor’s team the lead and she  pitched quickly and aggressively, as she staked her team to a 7-2 win as she struck out seven and was clocked in the 67-68 mph range.

On the offensive side, Kinsey Fiedler, the outstanding infielder ranked #2 in the 2021 Extra Elite 100 and the #1 infielder (tied with Julie Crenshaw of St. Louis Chaos, the Mizzou commit also at this weekend’s event), showcased her big bat in this game.

The Washington commit led off the bottom of the 1^st with a single and came around to score the game’s first run and then, in the 2^nd inning, stroked a homer to left center in the bottom of the second to chase Marron. For the night, Fiedler had three hits and scored three runs.

* Game of the Night: the Aces and Iowa Premier faced off yet again at 7:15, only this time it was the 16U teams who battled and it was a thriller.

Just like the previous 18U matchup, two of the best pitchers at this younger age division went head-to-head in Cierra Harrison for the Aces and Teagan Kavan for Iowa Premier and both pitchers were on their “A” game Saturday night.

The game was scoreless through the bottom of the 6^th inning as Harrison only game up two hits and three walks while striking out six and Kavan gave up three hits and two walks while striking out 10.

In the bottom of the 6^th, however, Kavan walked the first two batters when the first of those baserunners, leadoff hitter Anyslee Linduff, noticing an opening and took it, sprinting to 3^rd base and making it ahead of the third baseman.

Illinois commit Sydney Malott hit a deep fly ball to right field and Linduff was able to come home for the game’s only run.

Harrison closed the door on Iowa Premier by getting the final out by strikeout and, like at the 18U age division, the Aces Fastpitch 16U team had locked in its bid to Nationals as did a strong Tulsa Elite 2023 program.

Here’s the final pitch by Harrison:

Linduff talked about that key play in this interview with Extra Inning Softball’s Brentt Eads after the game:

The final games will be Sunday at 5 pm Davis Diamond Stadium for 18U, 2:45 pm at Davis Diamond Stadium for 16U and 3:15 pm at Old Aggie Field for 14U.

In the 14U age division, the Iowa Premier National team is set for one of the spots in finale with a record of 4-0 and having outscored opponents 31 to 12.

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SATURDAY RESULTS

18U

 16U

14U