Retire Jordyn Rudd once, good for you. Twice, even better.
Eventually, though, the Center Grove senior always seems to find a way to ruin an opposing pitcher’s day.
Rudd slugged two RBI doubles — one that broke a scoreless tie in the sixth inning and another one to push across the decisive run in the eighth — as the Class 4A No. 1 Trojans needed to work overtime for a 3-1 victory over Martinsville in the final game of the Franklin Central softball sectional on Wednesday.
The Trojans (28-1) will host the winner of the East Central Sectional in a regional game next Tuesday evening.
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After Martinsville (23-5) tied the game with two out in the bottom of the seventh on a solo homer by McKenna Gardner, Center Grove wasted little time striking back. Addy Osborn led off the eighth with a single, then came home almost immediately on Rudd’s second consecutive two-bagger. Following a base hit by Abby Herbst — her fourth of the game — Rudd scored an insurance run on a Lexi Fair sacrifice fly.
Herbst, who struck out 11 and allowed only four hits, shut the Artesians down in the bottom of the eighth to end it.
“I made my adjustment,” Rudd said. “I swung at two bad pitches, and I was able to make that adjustment and hit the right pitch. And that was the same for lots of our girls. Clara (Andersen) had great at-bats. She waited for the right pitch. We all need to do that more often.”
After five scoreless innings, Center Grove finally got on the board in the sixth when Piper Belden poked a one-out single to right field. With two out, Rudd — 0 for 2 to that point — ripped a ball deep into the gap in left center, bringing Belden home from first.
Herbst followed with her third single of the game, putting runners on the corners, but Center Grove (28-1) couldn’t plate an insurance run there and left the bases loaded in the top of the seventh.
That proved costly when the Artesians tied the game on Gardner’s homer, just the third ball that Herbst had allowed out of the infield all day.
“Just a miss by me,” said Herbst, who is 18-0 and among the state leaders in earned-run average. “It happens. I definitely wish it hadn’t happened then, but there’s nothing else I could have done than just come back and get a hit, which I did.”
Martinsville’s Lexis Lucas was almost as stingy for most of the day. The IUPUI recruit didn’t record any strikeouts but yielded just four hits before the fateful sixth and did not issue a walk.
Eventually, the Trojan hitters started getting their timing down, and they collected 10 hits over the final three innings. Herbst finished 4 for 4 offensively, while Andersen and Belden each collected two hits.
“When we came from (Tuesday against Franklin), Izzy Harrison pitching upper 60s, to a little below 60, it’s a big difference, and we just weren’t able to adjust soon enough,” Rudd said. “But luckily we did.”
Center Grove had the first real scoring opportunity for either team when Andersen led off the third with a double, but the senior was thrown out at the plate trying to score on a base hit by Piper Belden. That set the tone for what turned out to be an intriguing game all the way through the seventh and beyond.
“Definitely more dramatic than we would have liked,” Herbst said, “but we came out on top.”
