With its win over Gilbert on Wednesday, the Class 2A No. 5 Collins-Maxwell/Baxter softball team locked up at least a share of the Heart of Iowa Conference title.
It’s the second straight conference championship for the Raiders, who are six wins away from tying last year’s school-record win total of 27.
While that league’s intrigue and suspense is all but over, the South Iowa Cedar League has itself a pair of tight conference races, and two area schools are in the middle of the races.
In softball, five teams are within one game of each other.
Colfax-Mingo suffered a loss to HLV on Wednesday, which pushed the 1A No. 11 Tigerhawks into a three-way tie for second with No. 12 Lynnville-Sully and North Mahaska.
No. 13 Sigourney is sitting at 10-3, No. 14 Belle Plaine is 9-3 and Colfax-Mingo, Lynnville-Sully and North Mahaska are all 9-4.
Based on strength of schedule the rest of the way, Sigourney and Belle Plaine have the best chance to hoist the conference title trophy at season’s end. Sigourney plays at Keota (0-13) and hosts Iowa Valley (2-10) to finish the season, while Belle Plaine concludes with two games against Iowa Valley, a home game against English Valleys (3-10) and a road game against Tri-County (6-7).
Colfax-Mingo swept Lynnville-Sully during the regular season. The Tigerhawks host BGM (7-6) and Montezuma (6-6) and travel to North Mahaska to conclude the season.
Lynnville-Sully hosts North Mahaska and BGM and plays at an HLV team which swept the Tigerhawks in 2017.
North Mahaska plays HLV in between its games of Lynnville-Sully and Colfax-Mingo.
The good news is, all four ranked teams in the league could play at the state tournament in Fort Dodge as all four programs will be No. 2 seeds in their respective regional tournaments. North Mahaska is the No. 3 seed in Lynnville-Sully’s regional.
The SICL baseball race for the title features a three-team race between Colfax-Mingo, Lynnville-Sully and BGM.
The Tigerhawks (12-2) and Hawks (11-2) both have two losses after Lynnville-Sully’s 2-0 win over Colfax-Mingo on Monday. The two teams split this season.
BGM currently has three conference losses in third. The Bears can make up ground in the standings early next week if they can beat both Colfax-Mingo and Lynnville-Sully.
The Tigerhawks also play North Mahaska, which defeated Colfax-Mingo 4-2 back on June 2.
Lynnville-Sully and BGM both have three SICL games remaining. The Hawks host North Mahaska (4-8) and BGM and travel to HLV (8-5), while BGM plays at Lynnville-Sully and hosts Colfax-Mingo and Montezuma (1-12).
To add even more intrigue, Colfax-Mingo, Lynnville-Sully and North Mahaska are all in the same 1A district.
Back to softball, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union made a mistake with its pairings. The original pairings had Columbus/WACO in 2A and Dyersville Beckman in 3A, but the two programs should have been in opposite classes.
So with Beckman moving to 2A, CMB will now be the top seed in Region 7 and it could still get three home games.
The Raiders (21-5) will play either Woodward-Granger or Panorama on July 5 in Collins.
Contact Troy Hyde
at thyde@newtondailynews.com