Three Iowans give No. 4 Gophers clout and a second reliable starter

The Iowa softball team was 10-9 in the Big Ten and 25-23 overall in 2010, and Gayle Blevins, a member of the college softball coaches Hall of Fame, retired at season's end. The Gophers were 2-17 and last in the Big Ten, 16-37 overall and co-coaches Lisa Bernstein and Julia Standering were fired.

Iowa athletic director Gary Barta hired Marla Looper, an assistant coach at Texas, to replace Blevins. Athletic director Joel Maturi hired Jessica Allister, an assistant at Oregon, to take over the Gophers.

Mark one down for Maturi.

The Gophers lead the Big Ten at 17-1, 46-3 overall after a 8-0 victory over Purdue on Friday and are rated No. 4 in the country. Before routing the Boilermakers, their three most recent Big Ten victories were a three-game sweep of the Hawkeyes that included a record crowd of 1,383 on Sunday at Jane Sage Cowles Field.

Sydney Dwyer, a Gophers junior from Bettendorf, Iowa, playing at first base this season, was 4-for-9 in the series with two RBI. Kendyl Lindaman, a freshman catcher from Ankeny, Iowa, was 3-for-7 with a home run and two RBI.

And, the winning pitcher on Saturday was Amber Fiser, a freshman from Van Horne, Iowa. She is now 11-0 with a 1.61 ERA, as the second starter to Sara Groenewegen, the senior ace for the Gophers.

"We love Iowa kids," Allister said. "We have two more coming for next season: Macy Gill, a utility player, and Rachel Lowary, a pitcher who also plays in the field.

"Iowa is unique in that it plays the high school seasons for softball and baseball in the summer. Those kids get to play a lot of games in warm weather, and it's not that long of a drive for us to get down there to watch them."

Looper has five Iowans on this season's Hawkeyes — 7-11 and tied for 10th in the Big Ten, and 16-28 overall. Three of those are lightly used, and two are the primary pitchers.

I'm not sure the Gophers losing outstanding in-state softball players to other programs would draw media attention here in the pro-dominated Twin Cities. It has for Looper and the Hawkeyes.

"There have been some articles written about it," Fiser said. "Wisconsin has some good players from Iowa, too; Northwestern, Illinois State … a number of schools.

"The [Iowa] coaches say they offered us. I don't know about the others. I didn't hear from them."

The first major school to show interest in Fiser was Minnesota. Later, she made a verbal commitment to Northwestern, changed her mind, and after her junior year announced for Minnesota.

Lindaman has been the superstar arrival as a freshman. She hit her 16th home run Wednesday vs. North Dakota State to set a Gophers' single-season record.

In a less thunderous way, Fiser also has created a different look for the Gophers. There's a movement at the top levels of Division 1 softball to rely less on a single ace pitcher, and Fiser's first-year work has provided that option for the Gophers.

Allister and pitcher Sara Moulton, a freshman from Eagan, arrived at the same time in 2011. Moulton started 83 of 108 games as the Gophers went from downtrodden to mediocre over the next two seasons.

The Gophers reached the NCAA tournament in 2013, with Moulton starting 45 of 55 games. In 2014, Moulton remained the ace with 37 starts, but Groenewegen made 17 as a freshman.

Once Moulton left, Allister put Groenewegen on an amazingly similar schedule: 39 starts and 234⅓ innings in 2015, 39 starts in 234⅔ innings in 2016.

And that workload was a possibility again for this season, until Fiser emerged from competition with two other freshmen, Carlie Brandt and Kendal Judge, and senior Tori Finucane to become the No. 2 starter.

The schedule adopted has been for Groenewegen to start Games 1 and 3 on a weekend, and for Fiser to start Game 2. Groenewegen has 22 starts and 159⅔ innings, well below her workload of the two previous Gophers seasons. Fiser has 14 starts and 69⅔ innings.

Fiser reaches 71 miles per hour from the 43-foot circle. Groenewegen throws in the mid-60s.

"It's all movement with Sara," Fiser said. "Her changeup … it's the best in the country. She must get half her strikeouts on pitches in the dirt."

Does Fiser throw a changeup? "Yes, but compared to Sara, not really," she said.

Fiser was a two-sport athlete while in the Benton Community School District in Van Horne. Softball and …

"Taekwondo," she said. "My mother signed me up because she thought taekwondo might get me 'out of my shell.' She probably was right. I was very quiet. The hardest thing for me in taekwondo was to do the yells as you make a move.

"I earned a first-degree black belt before I quit. I decided breaking boards with my pitching hand might not be the best thing for my softball future."

Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500. • preusse@startribune.com