RIDGEFIELD — The Rochester baseball team’s season came to an end Wednesday in Ridgefield, as the Warriors ran into a buzzsaw on the mound and were shut out 2-0 by Hudson’s Bay’s Sebastian Laddusaw in a loser-out game at the 2A district tournament.
“It was a classic pitchers’ duel,” Rochester coach Brad Quarnstrom said. “We just ended up on the wrong side of it. That’s just the way she goes sometimes.”
On Rochester’s side of the duel, for the last time in a Warrior uniform, stood Braden Hartley, who put out what would have — with the help of some run support — been a signature outing. The Yakima Valley College commit struck out nine and gave up just two runs on four hits and three walks.
“That was his best performance of the year, for sure,” Quarnstrom said. “He gave us a chance.”
But the few times Hartley faltered even a little bit, Bay took advantage. After he walked the leadoff batter of the game on a few pitches that barely missed, the Eagles stole the runner to second, then scored him on a single to right.
That would be the Eagles’ only hit of the first four three innings, but as the afternoon wore on, the run continued to stand.
“You don’t think one in the first is going to be the demise of you, but it was,” Quarnstrom said.
Opposite Hartley, Laddusaw was even better, taking a perfect game two outs into the fourth before Rochester got its first baserunner of the game on an error. Given an open base, the Eagles chose to intentionally walk Hartley; that ended up being Laddusaw’s only walk of the game, and he got out of the jam without any damage.
Mason Ubias broke up the no-hitter with one down in the sixth, but that turned out to be the Warriors’ only knock of the day.
“He was hitting his spots really well, and mixing things up,” Quarnstrom said. “When you do that, the other team’s off-balance. We squared a couple of balls up, but could never string them together.”
Rochester ends its season with a record of 12-10. The Warriors will graduate five seniors: Hartley, Hyde Parrish, Jyson O’Connor, Owen Gillaspie, and Brady Baird.
