Edna Stewart
March 15, 2011
Is Our Seafood Safe?
March 17, 2011It was a matchup between two teams in similar situations Thursday afternoon when Central Lafourche took on Terrebonne in a battle of clubs that struggled in non-district play.
In the end, one team righted its early season failures, while the other sunk a little deeper southward in the race for the playoffs.
The team standing on top was the home standing Lady Trojans after they pounded the Lady Tigers 16-6 with timely pitching and an explosive of offense that overwhelmed Terrebonne’s struggling pitching staff.
The win moved Central Lafourche to 2-1 in district play – a far cry from the struggles the team had outside of district play that saw losses pile up far more frequently than victories.
“We had to have this one,” Lady Trojans coach Katie Dufrene said. “And that’s specifically because we struggled [last] Monday against Thibodaux. We knew we were a better team than we were on Monday. We just knew we had to fix some things and tweak some errors we had during the week to come out strong today.”
Coming out strong wasn’t something the Lady Trojans did early in the season, as they were battered and bruised all throughout non-district play, dropping numerous games, including a 9-1 loss to E.D. White and a 7-1 loss to Patterson.
The root of those problems for Central Lafourche is defense and costly errors – something that players and coach alike agree has been the Achilles Heel of the team’s struggles.
“Errors,” Lady Trojans outfielder Ashlyn Grabert said. “We really need to make fewer errors.”
Against Terrebonne, those demons of previous games initially haunted Central Lafourche, as the team bobbled balls both in the infield and outfield to spot the Lady Tigers an early 3-0 lead in the opening inning.
But the team put a Band-Aid on its defense which enabled them to rely on the pitching of Emilee Rodrigue and Danielle Robichaux to stay on top and get the second district win.
“We started off a little bit weak and we had those errors all over again,” Dufrene said. “But I’m very proud of our effort and we fixed it and overcame it.”
With defense putting Central Lafourche back in the dugout, the team’s sluggers were able to come to the plate and do major damage.
Dufrene said the Lady Trojans struggled offensively to start the season -something she believes was a residual mental effect of the team’s poor defense.
Those struggles were no more against Terrebonne, as Grabert and teammate Heather Adams pounded multiple RBI hits to put the game away for good.
“I feel like inside of my whole lineup, anybody can hit anything at any point,” Dufrene said. “That’s very useful – especially in district games when you can have anyone in your order up there capable of bunting or hitting a good, clean shot. We feel like our lineup is pretty good.”
With the offense in hand, the Lady Trojans were able to score a 10-run rule over Terrebonne, who is the defending district champions.
Sure, the Lady Tigers are without many of the key components from last year’s team, but they are still Terrebonne and the Lady Trojans are excited about their accomplishment.
“Not against Terrebonne,” Grabert said. “We didn’t see that one coming.”
“We’re pretty pumped up about it,” Adams added.
So is their coach, who said the team just needs to work on fixing its defense the same way it overhauled its offense.
If they do that, the coach doesn’t see any reason why the Lady Trojans can’t challenge powerhouses South Terrebonne and Assumption for a spot in the playoffs.
“16 runs is an awful lot,” Dufrene said. “And once again, it used to be our offense that was struggling, but we got that fixed. So now I think the kids see that if we can do the same on defense and get those errors out, we can be a very powerful team. … Being 2-1 feels awesome. We’re coming off a team that didn’t make the playoffs last year and we have a lot of older, experienced girls, so we really wanted that this year, so this start is very big for us.”
