Schaben part of rising ISU softball program

 AMES -- Starting all but one game and posting numerous career highs, Iowa State junior third baseman Logan Schaben helped the 2019 ISU softball team reach new heights this past spring as the Cyclones notched their first winning season since 1995.
 The daughter of Gary and Jackie Schaben, rural Portsmouth, and a 2016 graduate of Harlan Community High School, Logan scored 18 runs and had 17 RBI on the year. She also earned first team Academic All-Big 12 honors, maintaining a 4.00 GPA with a double major in finance and marketing.
 Defensively, Schaben committed just 14 errors in 61 games at the hot corner and finished with a fielding percentage of .936.
 Schaben has now started 145 out of 151 games in her Cyclone career, playing primarily at shortstop as a freshman, designated hitter as a sophomore and third base as a junior.
 Schaben’s list of career-highs in 2019 included a .220 batting average, 62 games, 61 starts, 132 at-bats, 18 runs, 29 hits, 17 RBI, six doubles, six times hit-by-pitch, 11 sacrifices, 143 assists and a .936 fielding percentage. She added four home runs and one triple, walked 10 times, had an on-base percentage of .304 and made 62 putouts on defense.
 The 2019 Cyclones finished 37-25 overall and 7-11 in the Big 12 Conference for fifth place - their highest conference finish since 1993. The 37 wins were ISU’s most since 1982 and tied for the second most in school history.
 In qualifying for the 2019 National Invitational Softball Championship in late May, the Cyclones played in their first national postseason tournament since 1988. They also did quite well, winning three NISC regional games in Ames before going 2-2 in the finals at Fort Collins, Colorado, and finishing as the runner-up to UT Arlington.