In two-plus years at the varsity level, Cedar Ridge senior Aidan Ryan never developed a reputation as a power pitcher.
On Friday night, he became one.
And it may have put the Red Wolves on the inside track to a baseball conference championship.
Ryan struck out a career-high 13 batters in a two-hit shutout as Cedar Ridge defeated Seaforth 1-0 at Red Wolf Field in Hillsborough. It was the first complete game of Ryan’s career.
Previous to Friday night, Ryan’s career-best was six strikeouts in separate games against Clover Garden School and Chatham Central last year.
Cedar Ridge (6-1) is now tied with South Granville for first place in the Big 7 Conference with a 4-0 record. It was the Red Wolves’ third straight one-run win. Last Friday, Ryan scored the walkoff run off a hit by Carter Warren to defeat Orange 6-5 in eight innings.
It may have tested the blood pressure of Cedar Ridge head coach Bryson Massey, but the Red Wolves have won its opening four conference games for the first time since 2012, when they were a 2A team playing schools like Voyager Academy and the N.C. School of Science and Math in the Carolina 9 Conference.
“Aidan and I had a talk before this season and I told him this team would go as far as he would take us,” Massey said. “I haven’t had a pitcher throw a game like that in my six years here. He’s taken that leader role and he worked his tail off all off-season. That outing was the biggest in the time I’ve been here.”
Seaforth, which came into the week on a 13-game conference winning streak dating back to winning the Mid-Carolina Conference title last year, now has lost consecutive league games.
Junior Jaedyn Rader, who used teammate Bryce Huneycutt’s glove because he left his own mitt behind in Pittsboro, struck out eight in another complete game.
Cedar Ridge junior John Grove led off the second inning with a fly ball that was misjudged by the right fielder and wound up over his head at the wall. Grove stood up for a double and went to third after a groundout to Seaforth shortstop Anthony Landano by Hudson Kelly. Red Wolf sophomore Jesus Velazquez sent a line drive to centerfield that was caught by Bauer Bowling, who came up throwing to the plate. The throw short-hopped catcher Colin Dorney and Grove slid in safely as the ball popped up in the scrum.
Ryan took a no-hitter into the fifth inning that ended when Dorney stretched a single beyond a diving Velazquez into the edge of the right field grass. Easton Sykes followed with a comebacker that struck Ryan on his leg for another single with no outs. After Landano laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners over, Ryan came up with his finest moments as a Red Wolf, striking out Tristan Cooper and Banks Elmore to get out of the inning.
Rader his own clutch moments. With Cedar Ridge clinging to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, Dominic Sena belted a ball just shy of the left field fence for a double. Ian McGuffey appeared set to bunt Sena over to third, but pulled the bat back for a cleverly executed single that rolled to the outfield grass. Grove was intentionally walked with no one out.
Yet Rader didn’t blink. He struck out Kelly, Velazquez and pinch-hitter Brody Tapper in succession to keep the Red Wolf lead at the minimum. The strikeout of Tapper was one of only two times that Rader was faced with a full count the entire game. He got the first strike across 68% of the time.
For Ryan, it was 62%.
Ryan opened the seventh inning by striking out Sykes and Landano. He had a 1-2 count on pinch-hitter Duncan Parker before Kelly recorded the final out on a pop-up to first base.
