RIDGEFIELD — On paper they may look young, but the Ridgefield Spudders don’t look at themselves that way and they definitely don’t play like it.
Ridgefield softball is 5-0 heading into a week-long hiatus for spring break, most recently grabbing a 10-1 win over R.A. Long on Friday. Three of those wins were against bigger programs, Class 4A Union, plus 3A Prairie and Mountain View.
The Spudders have done it with a team made up of just one senior, Alissa Wallaway, plus four players in each of their junior, sophomore and freshman classes.
“I honestly didn’t think about that,” junior Maizy Whitlow said of Ridgefield’s youth. “But now that I do, we do only have one senior, but I feel like everybody is kind of their own leader on the team. I feel like everybody just does their best and it works as a team.”
However, being a young team doesn’t necessarily equate to being an inexperienced one.
After Friday’s game, head coach Kelsey Anchors looked around the Ridgefield softball diamond and pointed to every position on the field where the Spudders have returners. All combined, it adds up to 71/2 out of nine positions.
Infielders Madison Walker, Kaylen Wingerd, Mallory Vancleave, outfielders Madeline Smith and Wallaway, plus catcher Makayla Ferguson and pitcher Elizabeth Peery were all starters last season.
Kaylen Wingerd, Emma Harvey and Whitlow, the Spudders’ clean-up hitter who leads the team with three home runs and 12 RBI, were all swing players between JV and varsity.
“I’m pretty thankful for their knowledge of the game,” Anchors said. “I don’t want to say it makes my job easy, but it’s fun to coach them because they make the games fun and they make them high energy and high level of play. I think that kind of takes over for them being young.”
This year’s group was shaped in part by the experience of the 2021 team, which played for just five weeks in the condensed pandemic season and went on to finish third in the Class 2A district tournament. In particular, they soaked in the leadership of four seniors who have since graduated.
Now, the team is taking a lead-by-committee approach, and they say it works for them.
“The seniors last year were very good leaders. They inspired the freshmen, sophomores and juniors, and everyone is starting to become a leader,” said Vancleave, who leads the Spudders in hits and shares a team-high .625 batting average with Smith. “It’s everyone together, not just specific people. I think it helps everyone.”
Added Anchors: “They paved a way of how we do things at Ridgefield softball and it pays off in the leadership, how we are high energy on the field and that’s how we stay for the whole game. It’s definitely nice to see that passed on from class to class.”
Of the Spudders’ five wins so far, they trailed for most of two games before answering with clutch plays late.
In one case, really late. Ridgefield trailed Union 6-0 on March 14 and was down to its last out after rallying to get within one run.
“We always give them a hard time that they get all their runs with two outs,” Anchors said with a laugh.
That’s when Peery doubled, Ferguson followed with a base hit and Smith tied the game on an RBI single. Freshman Ashlynn Bredemeyer delivered the walk-off hit to complete an 8-7 comeback.
One week later, Ridgefield took Prairie to extra innings and prevailed 3-2 thanks to a Vancleave solo home run and RBI single.
“I think we always went into the games thinking we could do this, but it really proved that we did it,” Whitlow said. “Especially against Union, they’re a big school and we expected competition and we got it … I feel like us coming back for those two games really was a big character-building (moment).”
Those moments are now part of the Spudders’ DNA, and not just for this season. The best part of being a team on the younger side is the realization of nearly the whole roster returning.
“We don’t have a lot of upperclassmen,” Anchors said, “so it’s nice to know these girls will be back next year.
“I’m happy with where we’re at, but I know we can only go up from here.”
