Murmurings started rising like dinner rolls in an oven amongst the crowd gathered to spectate Edgewood softball’s regional tournament game Thursday.
Edgewood assistant coach Scott Snow peered his head from the team’s dugout and started mentally replaying the game to that point, trying to figure out if the suspicion that had just popped into his mind was accurate.
As the Wildcats completed their sixth inning on defense, he turned to head coach Kim Brown and asked if she realized what was on the line.
“He said, ‘You know what’s going on right?’ And I said, ‘I do. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything,’” Brown said, laughing.
Edgewood pitcher Harleigh Anderson had faced 18 batters to that point in the Wildcats’ third-place game in the regional tournament against Lakeside, and she’d retired all 18. Anderson had allowed no hits. She’d issued no walks, hit no batters, her defense hadn’t made an error in the field.
She was three outs away from perfection, and Brown didn’t want anyone to jinx it.
After two popouts opened the seventh inning for the Chiefs, Lakeside’s three-hole hitter smacked a ground ball to second baseman Hayden Hudson, a sixth-grader filling in at the varsity level due to injury.
Hudson picked up the dribbler and passed it over to first, retiring the runner by a single stride. Anderson had just completed a perfect game.
“It was my first perfect game I think I’ve ever thrown, and at first I was like, ‘Wow did that happen,” Anderson said. “Had to realize too, yes I pitched a good game, but my team helped me out a lot. They did their job, we played defense, we hit great.”
Anderson’s head stayed level throughout the contest, noting that the perfect game didn’t become prevalent in her mind until the sixth inning.
Anderson utilized an effective mix of pitches, retiring 11 of the 21 batters faced via strikeout. Nine of those 11 struck out swinging.
Her level-headed demeanor helps, Brown added.
“A lot of pitchers, you can tell they get frustrated or they get down on themselves when they get behind in the count. But her composure is always the same when she’s pitching,” Brown said. “I’m really proud of her for that.”
It’s a superstition in softball and baseball not to mention a no-hitter or perfect game, especially to the pitcher throwing it, and as a result, not all of Edgewood’s players were aware of the achievement they witnessed when the game ended, Brown said.
One player well aware was Edgewood catcher Lindsey Brown, the first person to congratulate Anderson after the final out occurred.
“She came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, my pitcher just threw a perfect game,’” Anderson said. “We had our team meeting after the game, and I was walking over there and the whole team was like, ‘There’s the perfect pitcher.’ That was fun. Then the coaches congratulated me.”
Part of the reason why Anderson was able to record the perfect game was effective pitch calling and framing from Brown as both parties stayed in sync throughout the contest.
The catcher caught a foul tip to convert one of Anderson’s strikeouts in the second inning.
Edgewood’s defense as a whole had to go errorless for the perfecto to happen, and 10 outs were made in the field.
“That’s what makes you nervous whenever the pitcher is working her tail off like that to have a game like that, it’s like, ‘Okay, just please don’t make an error,’” Brown said. “Let her have this time. Her moment here. I was really proud of our defense and how they worked.”
With what she said was one of her crowning softball achievements in the mirror, Anderson is now looking ahead to the state tournament.
The eight-team, double-elimination bracket will be played out over Friday and Saturday with the winner capturing the AISA Class AA state championship.
Anderson has been the team’s go-to in the circle, eating up 72 percent of all innings pitched by the Wildcats with a 2.45 ERA and 152 strikeouts against just 53 walks.
That won’t change come tournament time.
“I intend to put her in the circle as much as possible throughout this weekend,” Brown said. “That’s why we play so many tournaments in our season, to get our team and our players and our pitchers especially in tournament shape.”
