Near perfect
Tedrow twirls masterpiece as Waynesburg downs Lady Falcons
WAYNESBURG – With his hands on his head and a wry smile on his face Waynesburg Central softball coach Jim Armstrong said, “One more pitch.”
That was the difference between Gina Tedrow and perfection Wednesday afternoon.
A two-out, two-strike grounded single to right field in the bottom of the seventh by Brownsville’s Lyla Gill broke up Tedrow’s perfect game.
“I really wanted that last out so bad for her,” Armstrong said.
Tedrow wanted it too, but the two late singles she gave up didn’t tarnish what was a masterpiece in the circle for the junior pitcher.
She retired the first 20 batters in order, struck out 13 and combined with an aggressive approach at the plate, Waynesburg avenged an early season loss to Brownsville with a 5-0 victory.
Brownsville (5-3, 8-5) won the first meeting 3-2 on April 15, but Tedrow made sure the Lady Raiders (8-2, 10-6) got revenge in the rematch.
She did not walk a batter, recorded her 400th career strikeout and hit a two-run homer.
“It was still a really good game,” Tedrow said. It felt really nice to beat them and to shut them out.”
With the win Waynesburg gained sole possession of second place in Section 4-2A behind Frazier.
Tedrow was in command from the start. She struck out nine of the first 12 batters she faced and Brownsville didn’t get a ball to the outfield until Lena Rechichar flew out to center field for the final out in the top of the fifth.
With Tedrow cruising, the other part of the equation Waynesburg had to solve was Lady Falcons starter Ava Clark, who had 17 strikeouts in the first meeting.
In the bottom of the second, Kolbi Rastoka, a freshman, provided the breakthrough.
After Kylee Schaum singled up the middle, Rastoka came to the plate and deposited a two-run homer over the left field fence. It was her first varsity home run and it gave Waynesburg a 2-0 lead.
“I half swung at the first pitch, and I just realized that the next time I needed to go for it and hit, because I wasn’t going to do anything with a half swing,” Rastoka said.
Waynesburg added three more in the third. The first one scored on a sacrifice fly by Ellie Makel. Then Tedrow stepped to the plate and smacked a line-drive homer to center.
“It hit the very middle of my bat, so I knew I got it,” Tedrow said. “I’m just glad I hit well today, because Ava has shut me out ever since freshman year. I usually can’t hit Ava, because she has a really good riseball and it’s hard not to chase it.”
Waynesburg finished with six hits and struck out only four times, a vast improvement from the first matchup. Armstrong said the team worked hard on hitting fundamentals recently.
It paid off Wednesday.
“We do a lot of basic hitting work and today they brought it to the field,” Armstrong said. “This is a very good team. They work hard and play together. I’m really proud of this team.”
Tedrow got her 400th strikeout in the top of the seventh. She got a ground out to shortstop Bre Kerr for the second out before yielding the back-to-back singles. Fittingly enough, Tedrow’s final out was a strikeout.
Brownsville coach Jane Bock praised Tedrow, but also felt her team could’ve done more at the plate.
“We’ve been struggling our last couple games,” Bock said. “We aren’t hitting like we were in the beginning of the season. I don’t know if the pitchers are getting better or we’re getting mediocre with our hitting, but we need to be better with pitch selection. We’re not swinging at strikes and we’re giving teams strikes that they don’t deserve.”