The good, the bad and ugly in Tri-parish sports in 2008

As a new year approaches, it’s time to take a look back at 2008. The year was filled with everything from hurricanes to state championships.

It also redeemed football for the Bayou Region.

What are the top local sports stories of 2008? Here’s the SportsNet’s Top 10 picks.

1. Hurricanes impact local sports

When hurricanes Gustav and Ike tore through south Louisiana in September – the first week of local football – the impact was immediately felt.

Every Tri-parish area school – except for the Ellender High School’s Patriots – lost the first two weeks of the football season. Ellender’s team was sidelined for three weeks.

The gyms at Ellender, E.D. White Catholic, Vandebilt Catholic and South Terrebonne High schools received extensive water and roof damage, leaving those schools searching for alternative sites to play.

Ellender, Vandebilt and South Terrebonne were able to use their old gyms, while E.D. White was forced to rely on Nicholls State, the Warren J. Harang Jr. Auditorium, Thibodaux, Central Lafourche and H.L. Bourgeois high schools for home games.

The football stadiums at South Terrebonne and Vandebilt received minor damage, but it did not directly impact the football season.

Lafourche Parish schools, with the exception of E.D. White, were spared overall. Other than a few baseball dugouts, scoreboards and light poles being damaged, the facilities survived the storms relatively unscathed.

Once the damage was assessed, Lafourche Parish School Board spokesman Floyd Benoit said officials were pleased with how well the schools held up.

“We don’t have to replace any gym floors, which can be a mess,” he said shortly after Ike clipped the southern reaches of the parish. “We’ll take the damage we have. We can replace fences and dugouts. And if we need to, we can play sports without a scoreboard. It could have been a lot worse.”

Nicholls State, on the other hand, had to alter its entire 2008 football schedule because the lights at the stadium had to be replaced. The campus also had damage to its baseball and softball outfield walls and scoreboard, the soccer scoreboard and roof damage on Barker Hall, which houses the athletic offices.

The storm forced the Colonels to cancel their first two games of the football season and move the remainder of the home schedule to daylight hours.

2. EDW volleyball wins elusive state championship

For six straight years, the E.D. White Lady Cardinals volleyball team found themselves in the state championship game only to come up short every time.

From the outset of the 2008 season, the Lady Cardinals knew it was their best chance to win the state title – especially with senior standout Kathryn Stock, who gave the Lady Cardinals a dominant inside presence.

The Lady Cardinals were fulfilling their destiny.

When they lost their gym to Hurricane Gustav, the team overcame adversity. They found an alternate home in the Harang Auditorium and went undefeated in district play, earning their 10th straight district crown.

Eventually, the Lady Cardinals found themselves in familiar territory – the state championship game, where the Academy of the Scared Heart from New Orleans awaited.

After jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead, the Lady Cardinals found themselves within points of the state title. But, a quick resurgence from Sacred Heart made the match 2-1.

In the fourth game, Stock took over, and the Lady Cardinals’ 25-15 win gave them their first state championship.

“I was telling the girls before the match this is seventh heaven because this is our seventh year in the title game,” Lady Cardinal head coach Mary Cavell said after the win. “To be able to finally win one feels wonderful. It’s a dream.”

Stock was named the Division III Most Valuable Player in the state, and later garnered the title as Gatorade Volleyball Player of the Year in Louisiana.

“The moment is surreal,” the senior told SportsNet. “This is my fifth straight time here and to finally get a win is amazing. We worked so hard, and just wanted it more.”

3. Vandy finds sports niche

Vandebilt Catholic dominated Class 4A prep sports in 2008 just as it did the previous year.

The Terriers won their second straight Southern Quality Ford Cup, given to the school in each of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s classifications based on the success of each of the athletic teams.

Vandebilt earned four team state championships, six individual state titles and two state team runners-up honors.

In February, the girls’ soccer team claimed its first state title, shutting out its last 12 opponents, while the boys finished second for only the second time in seven straight championship game appearances.

In April, the Lady Terriers won its 13th state softball title, shutting out the playoff competition 48-0.

Also that month, both tennis teams won state championships. Matt Spence won the boys title as a freshman and sisters Ruth and Jessica Bourque won the girls’ doubles title.

In May, Rachel Laurent won her third state outdoor track and field championship in the pole vault. She set the second-best all-time girls high school pole vault mark, clearing 14 feet back in March.

In June, pitcher Lauren Crane was named 2008 Louisiana Farm Bureau’s Miss Softball, and Laurent was named Louisiana Gatorade Female Track and Field Athlete of the Year for the third straight year.

In November, the girls’ swimming team won its fifth consecutive state championship, while the boys’ team finished second. Amber Pierce won the girls’ 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle for the fourth consecutive year. Anee Briglio won the 100-yard backstroke and Rhyan Thomassie won the 100-yard breaststroke.

4. Tiger romp

Football in the Bayou Region hadn’t seen much success in recent years. Before the season started, Bayou district (7-5A) teams netted a combined 1-17 in the playoffs and hadn’t made it past the second round since the mid-1990s.

One team changed those fortunes this season.

When Dennis Lorio returned to the sidelines for his second stint as Thibodaux High Tigers head coach, not even he could have predicted the season.

Despite losing two weeks of the season to hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the Tigers put together an impressive game plan. Their defense did not allow a touchdown until the fourth game of the season and they did not give up double-digit points until three weeks later.

The Tigers defeated eventual 3A state champion Lutcher to open their season. Seven weeks later, Thibodaux High was undefeated and won the district for the first time since 1991.

The team’s 26-21 victory over the Covington Lions in the first round of the playoffs was the school’s first playoff win since winning the state title under Lorio in 1991. It was also the second time a Bayou district team had gotten out of the first round since the South Terrebonne Gators managed the feat in 2005.

The Tigers erased a 22-point halftime deficit the next week to defeat St. Paul and advance to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs, becoming the first modern-era Bayou district team to do so.

Despite losing in the quarterfinals to Barbe, Thibodaux solidified their spot in the Top 10 of the power rankings and made Bayou Region football a force to be reckoned with again.

Their success, coupled with an unexpected winning season by Terrebonne High, made 2008 the Year of the Tigers. Under second-year head coach Gary Hill, Terrebonne finished second in district. They were undefeated in district play until the final week, when they lost to Thibodaux.

Terrebonne’s season ended with a 28-14 loss to Rummel in the first round of the playoffs.

5. HLB boys, EMHS girls make runs at state championship

When the H. L. Bourgeois Braves boys’ basketball team started last season 7-9, nobody was thinking state title.

When the Ellender Lady Patriots were up 49-45 against St. Michael with 69 seconds left in the Class 4A championship game, everybody was thinking REPEAT.

While both squads ended the season one victory short of the ultimate prize, the players, coaches and fans can be proud of the season each team had.

The Braves 5A title run was unexpected.

Playing an arduous non-district schedule that included two state champions and losing two straight district games, Bourgeois battled back to gain a share of the District 8-5A championship with South Lafourche.

In its first boys’ Top 28 appearance since 1978, Bourgeois upset top-seeded Huntington in the semifinals before losing to second-seeded Lafayette in the championship game.

Meanwhile, after claiming the 5A championship in 2007, the Lady Patriots (33-5) were looking for their fifth title in a decade.

Led by seniors Asia Williams, Da’jeane Jones and 2008 Louisiana Farm Bureau’s Miss Basketball Deana Allen, top-seeded Ellender were District 8-4A champs and beat their first four playoff opponents by an average of 27.5 points.

But St. Michael scored six straight points in the final minute to beat Ellender. It was the Lady Patriots’ second runner-up finish in seven title game appearances.

6. EDW Cross Country adds another title to resume

For the seventh consecutive year, the E.D. White Cardinals won the boys’ cross-country state championship.

The feat was the 14th overall for the school. However, it was the first one the team garnered without head coach Eddie Cole at the helm.

When the 32-year coach at the school announced he was leaving to be close to family in Baton Rouge, it came as a shock. But it didn’t slow the Cardinals down.

The Cardinals finished in first place with a total of 38 points. The second place team was 28 points behind.

The top finisher for the Cardinals was senior Jordan Reed, who finished second with a time of 16 minutes, 21 seconds. Junior Christopher King (seventh, 16:52), Evan Thibodeaux (eighth, 16:53) and senior Ethan Miller (ninth, 17:23) also finished in the Top 10.

Following the win, new head coach Don Grabert credited the team. Cole’s departure united the team, Grabert said. The new coach said he was just happy to be a part of it.

“These kids are great,” he said. “I had coached most of them with the track team anyway, so they were as familiar with me as I was with them. Eddie (Cole) was great with the kids, but we’re a family. They stuck through it and we’ve come together in the transition.”

7. Gas prices pinch local programs

Parents want to attend all their youngsters’ games.

Young athletes want to be on year-round travel teams and summer leagues.

But when the price of fuel reached nearly $4 a gallon for gasoline and nearly $5 for diesel this summer, the sports community felt the strain from all sides.

For the first time, school principals, athletic directors and coaches who have budgets to stay within began to take the distance of away games into consideration before making schedules.

Particularly worried were Vandebilt Catholic, Ellender Memorial and Morgan City high schools, which make regular trips to New Orleans for district games in various sports.

Public school systems, which had not increased the allotment for extracurricular activities transportation in years, grew more severely outdated by the week.

Parents had no choice but to dig deep in their pocketbooks FOR their children’s favorite sport.

School administrations turned to booster clubs and other sources for extra revenue. Then the remarkable happened.

A national recession took hold and oil and gas prices having been falling precipitously since October.

8. Bayou Bucks lawsuit settled; Houma welcomes new team

In August, the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government was ordered to pay $800,000 plus attorneys’ fees to former Bayou Bucks owner Neil Suard.

A seven-member federal jury found the parish liable for fraud. Suard claimed former Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center Director Linda McCarthy inflated team profit projections to entice him to invest in the Bucks, while simultaneously advising the other owners to sell their stakes in the team.

Three months after Suard accepted the settlement, the parish welcomed its second indoor football team, the Houma Conquerors, of the newly formed Southern Indoor Football League.

With the civic center under different management, Conquerors owner and head coach Franklin Thomas, a former Buck player and assistant coach, sees a more positive future for the club.

Apparently, so does the SIFL, which made Houma one of its six charter franchises.

The Conquerors first game is scheduled for after Easter and the first home game for April 26, 2009.

9. An unexpected run for Nicholls softball

The Nicholls State Lady Colonels softball team squeaked into the Southland Conference Tournament.

They finished the regular season 28-27 overall with a 15-14 record in the Southland Conference.

It was nothing new for the Lady Colonels, who made three straight appearances in the postseason event, but 2008 slowly became a year for players to remember.

The sixth-seeded Lady Colonels had a steep hill to climb if they wanted to make a run, but they were up to the challenge. They won two of their first three games of the tournament in extra innings, and eventually found themselves in the conference title game against Stephen F. Austin.

It was their first trip to the Southland Conference title game since the 2003 season. The Lady Colonels eventually fell to SFA.

“I can’t tell you enough how proud I am to be a coach and a part of this team. I think that we definitely proved that we belonged here this weekend,” seventh-year head coach Jenny Parsons said after the game.

The Louisiana Sportswriters Association honored sophomore pitcher Lacey Gros with the Newcomer of the Year Award. Gros’ opponents batted only .183 against her in 92 innings of work. She also struck out 99 in that time frame.

Seniors Amy Thibodeaux (first baseman) and Kat Harrell (shortstop) and sophomore Audrey Wood (utility) were all named second-team selections.

10. Thibodaux native Carl Johnson refs Super Bowl

Every boy dreams of playing in a Super Bowl, but one Thibodaux man got to experience the next best thing.

For 27 years Carl Johnson donned the zebra stripes as an official.

Johnson got his start refereeing 9- and 10-year-old Terrebonne Recreation league football, before working his way up through the high school and college ranks, eventually reaching NFL Europe and the NFL.

In February, the former Thibodaux High football star and Nicholls State baseball star was on the sidelines as the line judge for Super Bowl XLII between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots – a far cry from his off-season job as a distribution manager for Coca-Cola in Thibodaux.

Johnson was part of the first Super Bowl officiating crew to have three African-Americans, and the first one to be headed by an African-American.

Out of 120 NFL referees, the league chooses nine for the Super Bowl crew based on a grading system. The NFL reviews 2,300 plays, and Johnson’s accuracy ranked highest among line judges.

Officials must have at least five years of NFL experience, refereed at least three playoff games and have the highest accuracy percentage throughout the season.

“It was surreal to me,” Johnson told SportsNet in February. “Walking on the field, it was just electric. It gave me a real sense of accomplishment.”

By the time Johnson and the rest of the crew walked off the field during Super Sunday, the supervising head of officials gave the entire crew an A-plus for their performance.

Football helmets are reflected in several inches of standing water in the Ellender Memorial High School locker room. The school’s gymnasium roof was damaged during Hurricane Gustav, leading to several inches of water causing damage to the floors, locker rooms and offices in the gym. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF