It was a long recruiting process, but Ella Leduc made her decision after a visit to her brother on Halloween weekend in Delaware.

She didn’t like the school he was attending.
That made her decision for her. She would continue her softball and academic career at the College of Saint Rose in Albany.

It felt like home.

“It felt familiar because it’s so small,” said Leduc, a senior at Marlboro High School. “It’s smaller. I just think the buildings were very homey to me. It just seems like a good vibe.”

She also had a strong relationship with Saint Rose and assistant coach Tony Kurucz, who also serves as the team’s recruiting director and has coached in the Dutchess Debs travel program where Leduc plays during the summer.

“I really just enjoyed him as a coach,” Leduc said. “When they went to Saint Rose (from SUNY Herkimer), they saw me play a couple of teams, and then (Saint Rose coach) P.J. (Anadio) ended up liking me.”

It also helped that the school is compatible for her academic plans, as she intends to major in sports management and then go on to law school.

She will, however, leave one of her longtime coaches behind when she goes off to college, as she’ll be leaving behind her father, Ray Leduc, who has been coaching her since she could pick up a softball and has been the Marlboro softball coach for the past several years.

He had presided over college signings before as a coach but was never in the awkward position of doing it not only as a coach, but also as the athlete’s father.

“Even coming in to work in a district where my kids were going to be – I was working somewhere else and I feared it might not go so well,” Ray Leduc said. “All my years of teaching, I’ve had my kids in my classes, and it’s worked out well, and coaching my older daughter in swimming and now softball. Fortunately, they’ve looked at me as a coach and I looked at them as just another athlete, and did everything that everyone else was doing. I never tried to pull the ‘Dad card.’”

Marlboro softball spectators may be surprised to hear that Leduc is going to Saint Rose as a second basemen. She’s played third base at Marlboro, but during the summer she gets to show off her range in the middle infield.

Third base is a bit more reactionary, and she plays closer to the hitter, lessening her range.

“At second base, I can really show off my range a lot, and I can show off my quick transfer and things like that,” Ella Leduc said. “Third base is a lot of reaction time.”

Leduc is joining a program that Anadio took over in July of 2022.

In Anadio’s first season, the Golden Knights are 5-12 as of March 26, but Anadio has seen success at Herkimer, where he posted a 437-89-1 record in 12 seasons, guiding the Generals to the 2013 National Championship, along with five runner-up finishes. He has led 11 NJCAA regional championship teams.

The possibility of Saint Rose on the upswing was an exciting possibility. She’s also looking forward to the freedom that comes with the college experience.

“(I’m looking forward to) playing for different coaches and having to compete on a different level where the definition of winning changes. I just look forward to that hard work that’s put into it. It’s just softball all the time, all year-round.”