Tuesday, June 7
June 7, 2011
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June 9, 2011
While most high school students are sleeping late, lounging on the couch and getting intimate with their PlayStation 3 controllers this summer, tomorrow’s prep baseball stars are working to perfect their craft.
The Swampland Baseball League got under way this week in the Tri-parish area, which coaches claim gives underclassmen an opportunity to get valuable reps they need to be ready for the 2012 varsity season.
“This league helps the kids out tremendously,” said Golden Motors Bayou Boys coach (and South Lafourche assistant coach) Lonnie Griffin. “The kids are out here playing and are adapting to their surroundings and are having a lot of fun, while getting better in the process.”
The way the 11-team league, consisting of high school players from Lafourche, Terrebonne and St. Mary parishes, is organized is simple.
Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of the month-long season, teams will meet and play regular season games.
One five-inning junior varsity game is played, before giving way to a seven-inning varsity contest.
From that season, the top six varsity teams in the standings advance to the postseason, which will be played at Berwick High School in late June.
Success in the Swampland League has direct correlation to success in the upcoming season. E.D. White coach Shane Trosclair knows that better than anyone. Last year, his team won the summer league. This past season, the Cardinals advanced all the way to the Class 3A State Quarterfinals.
“We will play 25 varsity games this month alone,” Trosclair said. “The more we play, the better our team gets. Swampland allows our younger players a chance to develop too. … Swampland gives us a stable league schedule and we build around that.”
This year, it’s the South Lafourche Golden Motors Bayou Boys who hope that trend continues, as they rolled out of the first week of play with a sparkling 3-0 record.
“That does definitely make us feel good,” Griffin said with a smile. “We have a great bunch of kids here. It’s a closely-knit group and we have some younger talent coming up that’s really good with them. We’re trying to make that gel together.”
Diamondbacks and Terrebonne coach Gus Brown agreed and said that he can easily see why there’s a direct correlation to Swampland success and high school wins.
“It really makes a big difference when you can keep those core guys together to play more games, to get more innings on the mound or to get more at-bats,” Brown said. “You just can’t beat it to play those extra games, whether it be 10 or 12 games or whatever, you just can’t beat it. Those teams that don’t have the opportunity to do that, it’s just hard to get better.”
Despite history, winning isn’t what the league’s about, it’s more based on development.
The players who make up the junior varsity rosters are primarily freshmen heading into their sophomore seasons. The varsity rosters are rising sophomores and juniors, many of whom are heading into their first seasons being counted on to produce at the highest high school level.
“This is a great thing for high school baseball in this area,” Brown said. “It gives guys a chance to adjust to the speed of the game.”
With that new time on the diamond comes natural growing pains and that’s exactly what the league is designed for, to allow young players to grow.
Take Thursday’s game between the Bayou Boys and the Diambondbacks (Terrebonne High School’s team) for example. Both the future varsity Tarpons and Tigers pitchers struggled all throughout the game, which featured more than 20 runs scored.
Instead of belittling the pitchers for their shortcomings, both Griffin and Brown were able to let the pitchers work through their difficulties and learn from their mistakes.
Those are luxuries that elude those in the pressure cooker that is a varsity prep schedule.
“We allow the chance, not that we want it, but we allow the chance for more failure here,” Griffin said. “And that’s because you can learn from it. … It’s a lot more relaxed.”
That experience in the line of fire is also more readily available to more players. Most of the teams in the league do not have concrete depth charts like they do during the season, which means everyone on the roster will get an opportunity to get at-bats and field their position.
“Pretty much the whole team will get a chance to get some swings in or field their position,” Brown said. “All of the guys here at this level will get a chance to show what they can do.”
So with the season revving up, coaches are excited about breaking in their up and coming talent.
One thing’s for sure, it sure keeps a player more polished than playing video games and nesting on the couch.
“Get them out here and let them sweat a little bit,” Griffin said with a laugh. “That’s exactly right.”
Golden Motors Bayou Boys pitcher Colby Callais fires a pitch during a recent Swampland baseball game. Callais is one of several players in the area fine-tuning his game in the summer developmental league. CASEY GISCLAIR
