Sheriff Webre Issues Statement on Impacts to LPSO Due to Statewide Mask Mandate
July 13, 2020
Dudley Talbot, Sr.
July 14, 2020
It was a weekend full of huge victories for the LBA Naturals baseball program in the midst of intense heat at the Jammin N July tournament in Hammond, Thibodaux and Denham Springs on Saturday and Sunday.
The 13U Green and 10U White teams finished the weekend as runners up in their respective brackets, while the 8U Blue team claimed the Jammin N July championship for its age group.
The 8U Blue team dropped its first game of the weekend before picking up a win over the 985 Baseball Celtics to finish pool play 1-1.
“Starting out the weekend, they had a little bit of adversity in the first game. We just challenged them to make sure they came back with some type of energy. We wanted to see how they responded, and they all responded much better than we expected,” 8U Blue Head coach Charles Morton said.
The team’s championship run in bracket play on Sunday began with an 11-2 win over the 985 Baseball Celtics before defeating the Padres 12-7 and the Pelicans 11-3. The Naturals ultimately claimed their tournament title with a 13-12 victory over the Hammond Astros.
Morton credits adjustments with at-bats and correcting defensive mistakes as being the driving force behind the Naturals’ momentum carrying into Sunday’s play.
“We won the first game, which wasn’t a pretty win, and then the next two games were really clean baseball games that we played, and then the last game, once again we ran into some adversity in the first inning, [going] down six to seven runs, and we found to fight back toward the end and scored four runs in the last inning to tie it up to push it to extra innings, and [they] found a way to win their baseball game for us,” Morton said.
Morton said he was proud of the way his players competed with discipline and picked each other up throughout the weekend.
“It was amazing. We’ve got a lot of guys that have a lot of talent, but I always challenge them to make sure when things are not going their way, they encourage each other because it’s easy to get down on themselves, considering how young they are,” Morton said.
13U Green
13U Green Head Coach Trey Domangue said he is proud of the grittiness his players displayed this weekend to make it to their bracket’s championship game.
“They’re really, really gritty. They played really well,” Domangue said. “They just never gave up… [with] 11 hours of baseball in 100-plus degree heat.”
After going undefeated in pool play on Saturday, the team picked up its first victory of Sunday’s bracket play in a 6-3 win over the Louisiana Dirtbags, before claiming a 12-8 victory over the Ascension Rebels. A 6-4 win over the LA Nationals propelled them to the championship matchup, where they fell to the LA Knights.
The Naturals wound up in two international tiebreakers over the course of the weekend, which resulted in one game that lasted over two-and-a-half hours, Domangue said.
Domangue praised his pitchers, calling their performance this past weekend one of the best he has seen from the team all year.
He said he is proud of the way his team refused to give up despite all circumstances.
“There was great leadership, great attitudes. No one gave up. Whenever we started to get down, there was always somebody picking somebody up,” Domangue said.
10U White
The 10U White team kicked off its weekend by finishing 2-0 in pool play on Saturday.
Sunday’s bracket play began with a 10-5 win over the LA Dodgers ahead of a 10-2 victory over the Bayou Storm to advance to the championship game. There, they fell 8-4 to the Louisiana Mayhem.
“They came ready to play. They were really focused and definitely gave 100 percent effort all weekend,” 10U White Head Coach Vincent Distefano said.
Distefano gave props to his players for continuing to compete despite the adversity they faced, between injuries and a limited roster.
“It was probably the hottest weekend of the year, at least to my knowledge, and we went into Sunday with only nine players,” Distefano said. “Even when we were losing, we still played like the score was 0-0.”
Distefano said that, in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it means a lot to him to know that his players can get a break from the challenges they are facing to focus on the sport they love.
“They’re just focused on baseball and doing what they’re asked to do to be successful,” Distefano said.
