Trending
By Michael Boytim
mboytim@altoonamirror.com
FLINTON -- Central Cambria's high school softball team suffered its first regular-season loss since 2022 on Tuesday against Somerset and faced a tough challenge just 24 hours later.
The Lady Devils traveled to Glendale, which has made the PIAA Class 1A semifinals the last two seasons, and that returns ace pitcher Madison Peterson.
Central Cambria proved to be resilient beyond perhaps even its own coach's expectations in a 7-0 triumph over the Lady Vikings on Wednesday.
"We're not used to losing, and I thought maybe we don't even know how to handle that even," Central Cambria coach Steve Ruddek said. "But they showed me today that they could put that behind them and focus and come right back and do what they needed to do. It was a very thorough and complete win today, which is what we needed."
After two scoreless innings, Central Cambria took advantage of two Glendale errors and a passed ball to go ahead 2-0. In the third inning, Katie Scott led off with a single and Katie George and Sophia Blasko hit back-to-back doubles to break the game open.
Rowyn Ruddek added an RBI groundout and a sacrifice fly later in the game.
"We focus on giving ourselves the best chance," Ruddek said. "We're not going to do that if we're striking out, and we're also not going to do that just swinging to make contact. We strive to hit the ball to get on base."
Though the Lady Devils continued to add on, it turned out they didn't need to with the way Keira Link pitched. The junior lost her bid for a no-hitter in the final inning when Glendale's Caitlyn Rydbom hit a leadoff double, but she finished off the shutout by working her way out of a bases-loaded jam when she struck out the final three batters of the game.
"She did a great job," Ruddek said. "Aubrey has been our No. 1 pitcher coming into this point. Keira has been struggling with consistency, but we all know it's there. We were just waiting for it to come out, and tonight it did. Even last night it started to emerge. Aubrey is dealing with some arm issues, and that's the luxury we have on this team is having two stud pitchers and even the next one in line is solid too."
Link struck out 11 hitters and walked just two. Both Link and Aubrey Ruddek had a chance to pitch occasionally for Central Cambria last year as star Kami Kamzik rested between starts. Ruddek pitched to a 1.42 ERA in eight games, and Link had a 1.24 ERA in six games.
"I'm happy with the way I pitched," Link said. "I was trying to get ahead of the hitters, do what I can and work from ahead."
With Kamzik off to Notre Dame, the experience has helped both pitchers going into this year.
"I think it's invaluable on two fronts," Steve Ruddek said. "One, they were getting real-game experience, which you never want to pass up. Also, it gave me a chance to rest Kami a little bit, and that's what we're trying to do this year. We have three good throwers, and we're going to mix them up."
As Link throws, she flips the ball from her throwing hand into her glove with great velocity two or three times before every pitch. The approach seemed to get into some of the younger Glendale hitters' heads.
"It's just to keep my arm loose," Link said. "It's to keep my speed up and the flick of my wrist good. I never thought of it as intimidating, but maybe it could look that way."
Only three of Central Cambria's seven runs off Peterson were earned, and the Lady Vikings had the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh inning before stranding all three runners.
"She's a stud," Glendale coach Bruce Vereshack said. "Maddie Peterson is an absolute stud. She's going to keep us in a lot of games. She kept us in this game. The one inning, we gave them five outs. You can't do that type of stuff. That wasn't a 7-0 game. It should have been a 3-0 game, and then a hit in that last inning, and it is a game. We took ourselves out of it with some errors, but you're going to have errors when you have young players."
The game was a non-conference contest scheduled to help the Lady Vikings get competition to prepare for the postseason.
"I love games like this," Vereshack said. "If you want to get better, you have to play bigger schools. We don't shy away from anybody. The game didn't go the way we wanted to. We made a lot of mistakes, but I took a lot of good things out of it too."
Glendale fell to 2-2, but its other loss was to defending District 6 Class 1A champion Claysburg-Kimmel.
"Our youth shows up at the plate a little bit," Vereshack said. "They are getting better. By the end of the season, we'll be fine. We have the pitching to do it, and by the end of the year we'll be a team to deal with."
CENTRAL CAMBRIA (7): Link p 411, A. Ruddek ss 400, O. Janosik 1b 300, Scott c 422, George rf 312, Blasko 3b 312, M. Janosik cf 300, R. Ruddek 2b 210, Maitlyn lf 210. Totals -- 28-7-7.
GLENDALE (0): Fry ss 300, Rydbom c 301, Peterson p 100, Buterbaugh 3b 300, Beck 2b 300, Kaufman cf 300, Snyder dp 300, Weld rf 200, McNitt lf 200, Simmers flex (1b) 000. Totals -- 23-0-1.
SCORE BY INNINGS
Central Cambria 002 301 1--7 7 1
Glendale 000 000 0--0 1 5
E--George, Buterbaugh 2, Fry, Beck, Rydbom. 2B--George, Blasko, Rydbom. RBI--R. Ruddek 2, Blasko 2, O. Janosik.
PITCHING
Central Cambria: Link (W)—7IP, 1H, 2BB, 11K, 0R, 0ER, 100 pitches.
Glendale: Peterson (L)—7IP, 7H, 0BB, 7K, 7R, 3ER, 107 pitches.
Records: Central Cambria (3-1); Glendale (2-2).