Ridgefield baseball peaking at right time

Driving in a car to any destination, your headlights only show a distance of 200 feet in front of the car. 

For Ridgefield baseball, the team is only worried about the next 200 feet in front of them, even if their destination is a league title and a state championship. 

“I compare (our goals) to a vacation, and if your plan is to take a road trip to Los Angeles, it’s great to know where you want to get to, but you can’t get out too far in front of yourself,” Ridgefield coach Nick Allen said. “The analogy we use is 200 feet, your headlights on your car only go 200 feet. And if you don’t take care of that trip 200 feet at a time, you might not get there. What’s in front of you right now is important to us and it is constantly changing.”

That motto this season has paid off for the third-year head coach. 

The team returned seven players from last season’s team and Allen felt his team had a chance to compete for the league title before the season began. 

The season didn’t start off well for the Spudders, losing three of the first four games. 

“At the beginning of the season with the weather and everything, I think we played a little bit hesitant at the beginning of the year,” Allen said. “We weren’t really in rhythm at the beginning of the season.”

But the team rebounded and has won eight of nine games since then. The team is 9-4 overall with a 7-1 league record, putting them on top of the 2A Greater St. Helens League. 

“The boys did a really good job of just continuing to get better and I think that some of the struggles in those first few games they really learned from and corrected some of those mistakes,” Allen said. “Every day is a new day to get better and a new day to go out and prove yourself, and they’ve stepped up to that challenge. It’s been pretty fun to watch.”

The team’s strength has been hitting, as the bats have produced 119 runs in 13 games this season, including two games with 20 runs, and the team has an astounding .395 batting average so far this season. 

“We felt like we had one of the stronger offensive lineups in the league and we felt like we could score runs,” Allen said. “The kids have done a good job this year scoring runs.”

Ridgefield has had three big bats this season. Senior Michael Martin has hit the ball well in the three spot and is a three-year varsity starter. Martin plans to go to Pacific Lutheran University to play baseball and football. 

Junior Kevin Miser has been swinging the bat consistently for Ridgefield. And a nice surprise for the Spudders has been freshman Spencer Andersen. He began the season hitting seventh in the lineup, but has been producing to move himself up the order into the four spot, and is hitting with more than a .500 batting average this season.

“Not many teams have gotten through that stretch of our lineup without giving up something, they have been the anchor of our offense for sure,” Allen said. 

Ridgefield has had recent freshman success, as Jeremy Martin came in last season and put up big numbers as a freshman for the Spudders. 

“We kind of had an idea that Spencer (Andersen) has had success and is a really talented player, you never know what you’re going to get from freshman,” Allen said. “I try to make those guys prove themselves and try to put them in situations where they are going to be successful and let that confidence grow. There’s a big learning curve for freshman but if they are given the opportunity to go out and be successful, then I hope they take the bull by the horns and Spencer has definitely done that.”

The 2A Greater St. Helens League is tough as usual this season, with Ridgefield holding onto a one game lead over Hockinson.

“Anybody can beat anybody on any given day in our league,” Allen said. “Every team has somebody they can roll out onto the mound that can shut you down. Since I’ve gotten here, the league has always been competitive and a lot of fun.”

Ridgefield hosts Hockinson on Wednesday with a lot on the line. If Hockinson wins, they would move into first place. Hockinson beat Ridgefield 2-0 on April 11 at Hockinson, and the win would give Hockinson the advantage in a tie-breaking scenario. 

“It’s going to be a big one,” Allen said. “That game is shaping up to be for everything because they beat us the first time. It should be pretty fun.”

The Spudders are winding down the regular season, and Allen wants the team to continue to do what it has been during their successful streak of games. 

“The pregame speech is pretty standard, ‘Do what you do’,” Allen said. “What we do well is go out and hit and run the bases aggressively and we score some runs. As long as we do what we do, it doesn’t matter who we are playing, we should be successful. That philosophy is not going to change.”

The team’s goal was and still is to win a league title, as well as win a state championship. But Allen wants to make sure his team is focused on the process. 

“If you’re not out here to win a state championship, then what are you doing, right?,” Allen said. “But we’re up by a game in the league standings so let’s focus on that, that’s the next goal, that’s the next step.”

Ridgefield made it to districts last season, losing to defending state champion Centralia before having its season ended by W.F. West, both of which play in the Evergreen 2A Conference. But that experience will help the Spudders going into districts this season. 

And like any road trip, getting through the speed bumps, pit stops and traffic along the way will lead to the ultimate destination, which for Ridgefield, is a state title. 

“That EvCo league is really good and we need to up the bar a little bit about what we’re doing and the way we go about our business to get to a competitive level with those guys,” Allen said. “It had been a couple years since we’d been to districts, so getting there was nice last year. The boys have a little bit of a better understanding of the level of play we need to get through that tournament.”