By JOE McFARLAND

Fresh off being named the Canadian College Baseball Conference’s Pitcher of the Week to start the season, it was hard to fathom Matthew Ridsdale upping the ante.

The Edmonton Collegiate Hawks lefthander opened the 2025 season with a complete-game three-hitter against the University of Fraser Valley on March 22nd, a 2-0 nailbiter for the team’s first victory.

It was about as clean of a start as you could expect so early in the spring season, as he didn’t walk a batter while striking out three.

Lo and behold, he found a way to top it by twirling the first no-hitter in team history as the Hawks downed the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Wolfpack 11-0 for his second win of the young campaign.

Ridsdale allowed five walks and struck out five in the March 30th contest.

“It’s honestly pretty surreal,” he told Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast.

“I’d never thrown a no-hitter, even in my Little League career, so the fact that it’s the first in program history is pretty wild.”

A commerce student at the University of Alberta, the well-traveled senior hopes he has a few more starts like that in his back pocket over the next couple of months.

EARLY BIRD PRIZE

Interestingly, Ridsdale wasn’t exactly sure how his start against TRU would go.

He admits that he had been quite busy with school and other commitments during the week, and had been thrown off his regular routine having not thrown a session for a few days prior to his outing.

“I was thinking it’s either my arm is going to feel really good and I’m going to throw especially well or it’s going to break down on me in the third or fourth inning and I’m going to lose the game,” Ridsdale laughed.

Things started well, as he allowed just one baserunner via error in the first inning, cruised with a 1-2-3 inning in the second, and another error allowed a second baserunner in the third.

After a quick fourth inning with two groundouts and a flyout, the 5-foot-11, 150-pound pitcher took a glance at the scoreboard.

“I think most pitchers will say that they ignore the scoreboard, I don’t pay attention to that, or I just go out and pitch,” he said. “But I was pretty locked in on the fact that there weren’t any hits up there.”

Superstitions be darned, the Brampton, Ontario native – whose family also lived in Cincinnati and Minnesota before landing in Edmonton – was motivated to get the job done.

CRUISING ALONG

Already sporting a 4-0 lead, the Hawks helped Ridsdale’s cause by putting up seven runs in the fifth inning of the Sunday afternoon affair.

With his team firmly in the driver’s seat, the southpaw allowed a walk, struck out a batter, then got the third batter of the fifth to ground into an inning-ending double play.

The sixth inning was just about as clean, with a strikeout, ground out and walk before Gabe Powell stepped up to the plate.

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On a 1-1 offering from Ridsdale, the TRU designated hitter poked a hot shot down the first base line towards Jake Roggensack, who admits when the ball is hit that hard, you don’t have a lot of time to think.

“I just saw the ball coming in my direction and relied on my senses to get the ball in my glove,” said the Wainwright native. “I’m just glad that I was ready and got the out to keep Rids’ no-hitter alive for him.”

Thankful for his infielder’s quick reflexes, Ridsdale says it motivated him to come back out in the seventh to finish the job.

“It was at that point I was like, ‘Okay, I need to finish it off for him and for my defense because they’ve done such good work.”

On the bench, head coach Jake Lanferman says the quiet buzz that had been building in the second half of the game started to get louder.

“Our dugout was pretty calm most of the game,” he said. “But when Rids went back out in the seventh, everyone was on the edge of their seats in the dugout, realizing the situation with the run rule.”

Up by more than 10 going into the seventh, the final inning was potentially upon the Hawks – and the no-hitter.

THE FINAL FRAME

Ridsdale didn’t have a lot of time to think about his final frame after the Hawks went down in order during the top half of the seventh.

He went right to work, inducing a flyout from Ryan Petrie and a lineout from Noah Wonnick.

That’s when the West Coast League’s Edmonton Riverhawks pitcher says things started to unravel a bit.

“I was just in my head thinking I needed to end this no-hitter on a strikeout and I was just trying to strike out the batter as much as physically possible,” Ridsdale said.

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Instead, he walked Hayden Dolley and Kai Scheck, adding an element of drama to being on the cusp of the Hawks’ record books.

After getting Manny Birch to swing at a first strike, Ridsdale got him to hit a grounder to third baseman Nathan Vanderwekken, who threw it onto Roggensack to seal the game.

The author of the no-no recalls the last out vividly, saying it felt like an eternity seeing the throw and waiting for the umpire to make the call.

“It just felt like everything stood still for a really long time,” Ridsdale laughed. “When the call eventually came, I got kind of fired up and I turned to see my third baseman just sprinting at me to come pick me up and then everybody was on top of me after – it was really cool.”

ONE MORE FIRST TIME

The Hawks have had some outstanding pitchers since the program began, most notably CCBC all-stars Halen Knoll and Riley Barrett.

Despite their best efforts and some outstanding performances over the years, neither produced a no-hitter.

Lanferman says he’s proud of how steady Ridsdale has been from the beginning, which was seven innings of shutout ball in a 1-0 win over Vancouver Island University in the 2021 Fall Championship, which replaced the COVID-cancelled spring season.

“He’s been a crucial part of this program since the beginning and he’s developed a tonne over the years,” the skipper said. “He works hard to master his craft and he’s a great representation of our program.”

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Like his teammates, Roggensack says it was a special game to be a part of so early in the season.

“It was really cool and fun to be a part of Rids’ success,” he said. “I’m just happy for him and was glad to be a part of such a big achievement that every pitcher dreams of accomplishing.”

While he is still sorting through the dozens of texts and social media notes after the outing, Ridsdale says he doesn’t want to get too caught up in the moment.

He’s enjoying the fanfare now but would like to keep the momentum going and set the bar high for his teammates as the spring marches on.

“The goal is just going to be try to prepare the same way that I have been and do the same exact things that I’ve been doing to see how consistent I can get,” Ridsdale said.

It’s all part of the work that he’s putting in to help lay claim to one more first for the Hawks: capturing a CCBC championship in May.