For 11 solid innings - spanning over a game and a half - the red-hot Muscatine softball hitters were held in check by host Davenport West.

All it took was one big inning for the bullets to start flying all over the field, and for the Muskies to break loose and claim a must-needed sweep, 4-1 and 9-2 over the Falcons.

"Once somebody hits one, it's like a train," said sophomore Kayla Gaunt, whose Muskies stayed two games behind undefeated North Scott in the Mississippi Athletic Conference standings. "You just keep going and going."

Muscatine (11-7, 8-2 MAC) had piled up 43 runs while allowing just one run in its last four games, so six runs in the first 11 innings of a doubleheader with West was a relative cold streak.

But in just four pitches, Gaunt, Megan Butler and Kassy Middagh cracked hard singles to break a

2-all, fifth-inning tie in the second game.

That set the table for Nichole Ganzer, who checkmated the Falcons with a squib two-run base hit that curled just inside the right-field line, giving Muscatine a 5-2 lead.

Thanks to dominant pitching by Gaunt, who picked up the victory in both games, West never recovered.

"She pitches with her command, inside and outside, and she changes speed well," Muscatine coach Dennis Schuur said. "She's worked hard all winter long and she's getting the benefits now."

The schedule ahead gets much trickier for Muscatine, facing a pivotal week against a pair of MAC rivals also in the hunt for second place - Davenport Assumption on Wednesday and Bettendorf next Monday.

"We need to take care of our business, and let the chips fall where they may," Schuur said.

As for West (5-13, 1-9), which starts four freshman and three eighth-graders, coach Steve Saladino was upset with his team's effort despite hanging with the Muskies for the better part of both games.

"That group of kids has more talent than I've ever had up and down the lineup," Saladino said. "Right now, we don't work hard enough, our pitching's not consistent enough, and offense, it's just inconsistent."

Three Strikes

- Gaunt threw exactly 100 pitches in her complete game victory in the opening contest, and struck out 10 Falcons without issuing a walk during the evening.

- In the bottom of the sixth of Game 2, West first baseman Mallory Moore belted a drive off the left-field fence; but she was thrown out trying to advance to second base on a throw by outfielder Chelsea Winegard.

- Sami Belz and Shyanne Saladino each threw exactly 58 pitches in Game 1.