FORT DODGE — It started with a drip, turned into a trickle and ended with an overflow.

Once Van Meter turned it on, East Marshall couldn’t get them stopped.

The defending state champions put up four runs in the third inning and scored seven times in the sixth to finish off the Mustangs 11-3 in Tuesday’s Class 2A state quarterfinal game at the Iowa Girls High School State Softball Tournament at Harlan Rogers Complex in Fort Dodge.

It marked the second year in a row East Marshall (27-10) fell to Van Meter (32-2) in the state tournament, leaving the Mustangs with just one last game to get over the defeat. The eighth-seeded Mustangs meet No. 4 Durant (21-13) in today’s 10:30 a.m. consolation game that will serve as their season finale.

“Are we one of the best eight teams here? Yeah, maybe,” said East Marshall head coach Jary Hoskey, hiding his pink-dyed hair under a ball cap. “Yeah, we are. We had them. I mean, I thought we had them.”

For a while anyway, East Marshall had everyone convinced of that, too. The Mustangs scored twice in the top of the first inning and had the highest-scoring team in the 2A tied up. All it took was one big swing for the Bulldogs to remember who they were and what got them this far, and East Marshall couldn’t recover.

Northern Iowa recruit Finley Netten hit a solo home run in the bottom of the third inning to start Van Meter’s four-run eruption, and the Bulldogs’ next five batters reached base too. A five-hit inning included back-to-back doubles, some East Marshall blunders and a swift changing of the tides.

The Mustangs made four errors in the loss, leading to six unearned runs and a lackluster finish to a hard-fought game against a really good team.

“The one thing we didn’t do is when we make an error, we need to fart, flush it and forget it,” said Hoskey. “And we didn’t do that, and some of them carried it into the dugout, some of them carried it out there on the field, and that’s just youth.

“We are young, but we’ll see what kind of team we have if we bounce back.”

Last summer, East Marshall’s hopes of making it to the state title game for the first time in program history were railroaded by a walk-off home run for Mady Schnell in the eighth inning of their semifinal showdown, 4-3.

On Tuesday, the Mustangs made it known they hadn’t forgotten.

Gianna Boswell led off with a bloop single to right field on the first pitch of the game, and she took second on a wild pitch. Two outs later, Peyton Grabenbauer reached when Netten’s throw pulled her first baseman off the bag, and Bailey Grant made it hurt by hitting a two-run double to right-center field.

“I think we were all pretty excited,” Grant said of seeing Van Meter again. “We wanted to get our little revenge back on them, and we’ve got a good team. So do they, but I think that if we play the way that we could, then it’d get us somewhere.”

It was a great start for the unranked Mustangs, who were making their eighth state tournament appearance. But it just didn’t last.

Netten made up for half of the two unearned runs with one big swing to start Van Meter’s four-run rally in the bottom of the third, and the ripple effect of her home run made a lasting impact.

“The way last year’s game went, we knew we were going to be in for a ballgame again,” said Bulldogs head coach James Flaws. “And it was for the entire game. They’re well coached and they hit the ball very well.

“Everyone’s going to give you their best shot, no matter who it is.”

East Marshall cut its 4-2 deficit in half in its next at-bat against Van Meter’s second pitcher of the game. Left-handed sophomore Jillian Wosmansky was relieved after three innings by eighth-grader Aniston Netten, who walked the first batter she faced in Vaeda Bryan. Libby Atcher bunted Bryan over to second, Makayla Hala’s groundout got her to third, and Delaney’s slow roller to the left side went for an infield single and drove in Bryan.

Down 4-3, the Mustangs needed one more big play to go their way to get back into the game, but the opposite happened. Ashtyn Wheater led off the fifth with a single up the middle, but Grabenbauer grounded into a double play to extinguish the spark. Aniston Netten didn’t give up another hit, and Van Meter finished off East Marshall in the sixth.

The Bulldogs blended three hits with three Mustang errors and three hit batsmen to put the game away an inning early, chasing Grabenbauer from the circle for freshman Taylor Halverson. Halverson faced two batters but couldn’t get the third out before Van Meter reached the mercy rule, hitting Alice Ruggles with the bases loaded to force home the final run of the game.

It was far from the drama that last year’s contest ended on, but it hurt just this year’s edition of the East Marshall softball team just the same.

“The best thing is we still get to play tomorrow,” Hoskey said. “You’ve got to give [Van Meter] credit. They hit the ball and we needed to. We made errors and we shouldn’t have. And that’s part of the game.”

Van Meter, which averages 10.2 runs per game, finished with 12 hits to advance to the state semifinals for the third year in a row. Marah Karaidos, Bianca Pickett and Waukee Northwest transfer Ava Hohenadel each had two hits to lead the Bulldogs.

Wheater was 2-for-3 to lead the Mustangs, while Boswell, Grant and Ryan had one hit apiece. Boswell, an eighth-grader, also made a highlight reel catch along the left-field fence, but Netten homered in the very next at-bat.

“I think when you come here, especially being the No. 8 seed, you come to have fun and you’re not losing anything and everybody’s got more to lose than you do,” Grant said. “I think that’s how we wanted to come into this game and just play the best that we could. In the moment I think we played as hard as we could, and it showed, and we know that we’ve got another game and we’ve got to play just as hard for the next one.”

Iowa Girls High School State Softball Tournament

At Harlan Rogers Complex, Fort Dodge

CLASS 2A

Tuesday, July 22

Van Meter 11, East Marshall 3, 6 innings

West Fork 7, Durant 1

Louisa-Muscatine 5, West Monona 2

West Lyon 10, Cascade 8

Consolation Finals

Wednesday, July 23

No. 4 Durant (21-13) vs. No. 8 East Marshall (27-10), 10:30 a.m.

No. 6 Cascade (20-10) vs. No. 7 West Monona (29-7), 12:15 p.m.

Championship Semifinals

Wednesday, July 23

No. 1 Van Meter (32-2) vs. No. 5 West Fork (23-6), 3 p.m.

No. 2 Louisa-Muscatine (30-6) vs. No. 3 West Lyon (29-1), 5:15 p.m.

Third Place

Friday, July 25

Semifinal losers, 3:30 p.m.

Championship Final

Friday, July 25

Semifinal winners, 5 p.m.

Van Meter 11, East Marshall 3, 6 innings

EM 200 100 — 3 5 4

VM 004 007 — 11 12 3

Peyton Grabenbauer, Taylor Halverson (6) and Bailey Grant; Jillian Wosmansky, Aniston Netten (4) and Cali Richards. W–Wosmansky (15-1). L–Grabenbauer (24-8). 2B–EM: Grant, VM: Ava Hohenadel, Hallie Karaidos, Alice Ruggles, Netten. HR–VM: Finley Netten (8). LOB–EM 6, VM 7.