BEA’s Dudish Handcuffs Lady Bison Batters for Second Time

HYDE — The Clearfield Area High School softball team probably figured Bald Eagle Area senior Megan Dudish couldn’t pitch much better than her 14-strikeout, three-hitter in a 1-0 duel with Heather Picard on April 4.

She was even more impressive, though, in the Mountain League rematch at the sun-splashed Bison Sports Complex Friday.

In fact, she was one out away from a six-inning perfect game when freshman Macala Leigey slashed her first hit as a Lady Bison through the middle and past second baseman Allie Simpson.

Seconds later, Dudish also lost her shutout on Megan Vanderburgh’s ringing double into left center.

So, the Lady Eagle ace had to be content with a 13-1 victory embellished by 18 strikeouts.

“Dudish stymied us down in Wingate, and she stymied us here tonight,” Lady Bison coach Bob Lewis said. “She’s a veteran pitcher, and she throws hard. The kids knew that’s what we were going to be getting and that’s why we worked extra hard (Thursday) night. We just couldn’t catch up to her.”

The Lady Bison simply were overmatched by Dudish’s array of pitches that were located with pinpoint accuracy.

She kept them off balance by spinning curves on the outside corner, busting screwballs in on their fists and firing hard risers past them.

“We were having a tough time catching up to the rise,” Lewis said. “We told the kids to try to move up and catch up to it, but they still weren’t.

“We have to find our strike zone, too, cause we’re still swinging at a lot of pitches out of the zone. A lot of that is inexperience. Three or four kids are coming up from the junior high. We’ve got two or three other new-time starters off the jayvees from last year, and they’re still learning their zone.

“But we’re getting better. We’ll stay positive. And we’ll move on from it.”

Dudish sent the first 12 Clearfield batters back to the bench, nine of them after swinging third strikes, before Devynn Ireland, another freshman, halted that streak with a foul pop-up.

Twin sister Victoria Ireland was the first Lady Bison to send the ball into fair territory, popping up to Simpson to lead off the sixth.

Dudish followed with her 15th whiff before Leigey broke up the perfecto with her sharp single, which may have been the result of the right fielder taking extra swings the previous night.

“She has put in her time,” Lewis said. “We were up here for a couple hours, and then she stuck around afterwards. She’s still a young girl, so I have patience with her. I still have a lot of faith in her.

“I have that with the entire team, and that’s what we’re coming to terms with. It’s a fact we’re a young team and we’re maturing. It’s just taking a little time.”

For three innings, Picard matched gooseggs with Dudish.

Then, Bald Eagle Area (7-5, 6-2 ML) struck for seven runs, all unearned, on five hits and three Clearfield errors.

Marissa Tobias led off the fourth with the first of her three hits and capped the outburst with a two-run single. Makennah Dyke’s sacrifice fly and Mikayla Smith’s single chased home runs, and the other three crossed on misplays.

“It starts with the kids having the mentality of when one thing goes wrong, they feel it’s gonna snowball,“ Lewis said. “And that’s what happened. That’s what we talked to them about after the game, just the fact that we can’t let that snowball. We just gotta be able to stop it at that point.

“And we have to support our pitchers with better defense. They will. They’re working hard at it.

Geidroc, Tobias and Logan Fischer had RBI singles in the sixth inning for the Lady Eagles, and Geidroc added another in the seventh before a fourth Lady Bison error and a wild pitch set the final score.

Picard gave up 15 hits over the last four innings, but only four earned runs. She struck out four and walked two.

The Lady Bison tumbled to 3-9 with a 1-9 league record.

“The thing we can’t let the kids do is just drop their heads and not pick them back up, because the fact is they are getting better and they are fighting and they’re not giving up,” Lewis said. “I don’t think their record is indicative of how decent we’ve been this year.

Clearfield will be at home again Monday to test Bellefonte, another ML top tier team that eked out a 5-4 win over the Lady Bison in eight innings on April 5.

See photos of the game here: http://www.ladybisonsports.org/lbsSBall042613.html

BALD EAGLE AREA — 13

Allie Simpson 2b 5320, Haley Geidroc ss 5332, Marissa Tobias 3b 4133, Logan Fischer c 4111, Megan Dudish p 5110, Makennah Dyke rf 1001, Mackenzie Proctor rf 3010, Mallory Bennett 1b 4110, Mikayla Smith lf 2111, Sydney Foster ph-lf 2000, Megan Peters cf 3220.  TOTALS: 38  13  15  8.

CLEARFIELD — 1

Megan Vanderburgh ss 3011, Lauren Butler 2b 3000, Rachel Hoffman cf 3000, Devynn Ireland c 300, Lucy Kovalick 3b 3000, Heather Picard p 2000, Victoria Ireland 1b 2000, Janelle Wallace dp 2000, Macala Leigey rf 2110, Mikayla Ebeling lf (flex) 0000.  TOTALS: 23  1  2  1.

Score by Innings

Bald Eagle Area     000 703 3 – 13  15  0
Clearfield               000 001 0 –  1   2  4
E – Vanderburgh, Butler, Hoffman, Ebeling 2. LOB – Bald Eagle Area 8; Clearfield 1. 2B – Geidroc; Vanderburgh. SF – Dyke. SB – Bennett, Smith.

Pitching

Bald Eagle Area – Dudish 7 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 18 K.
Clearfield – Picard 7 IP, 15 H, 13 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 K.
HB – Picard 1 (Fischer). WP – Picard 1.
W – Dudish. L – Picard (1-4).
Umpires – Larry Nairn (plate) and Tom Link (bases).

Lady Bison Scoreboard: