Pitch perfect under pressure

When Camas High softball pitcher Kennedy Ferguson took the mound against Union High on May 9, she knew a win would clinch a Papermaker league championship.

The pressure didn’t faze the ace pitcher. Once Ferguson started mowing down a few batters, she really got rolling, securing a league championship by throwing a perfect game: No walks, no hits, not even a pop fly out.

Ferguson faced 15 batters during the May 9 game, and struck out every one. The 13-0 game was called after five innings because the Papermakers scored seven runs in the fourth inning, pushing the score to 13-0 and triggering the “10-run mercy rule.”

Ferguson said she worried toward the end of the game that she might lose her perfect-pitching streak.

“I said to myself, ‘If I lose this, I’m going to be so mad,'” said a jubilant Ferguson seconds before her teammates surprised her from behind and marked the special moment by dumping ice water from a cooler over her head.

“She’s worked so hard to get here,” Deeann said. “We can only push so far and the rest is all Kennedy.”

Lunde said Kennedy is always the first to show up and the last to leave.

“You hear that about ball players in many sports,” Lunde said. “Kennedy is proof that it really does pay off.”

Papermakers’ offense takes over

The Camas bats were as hot as their pitcher, racking up 17 hits during the game against Union. Kyli Obermiller, Payton Bates, Katie Hancock, Emery Ellis and Ferguson all racked up multiple hits. Catcher Abbi Wong kept the defense in sync and the Papermakers didn’t commit a single error in the game.

“Abbi had some unfortunate injuries early in the season, but now she’s on fire,” Lunde said. “I told her when I’m in the third base coaching box, you no longer have to listen to anything I say and she said, ‘Lunde, I got this.'”