Proposed parish pipeline provides promise
May 3, 2011
Rebecca Cheramie
May 5, 2011
The power of revenge just proved too strong for the Vandebilt softball team in its quest to win a second-straight Class 4A state championship.
The Lady Terriers were knocked out of the LHSAA Fast Pitch 56 state softball tournament Saturday, dropping a 9-3 game to Sam Houston High School in the state semifinals.
The Lady Terriers had beaten Sam Houston 3-2 in the state championship game last season.
This time around, it was the Lady Broncos who stood tallest getting their revenge and eventually winning the state title Saturday night in a 1-0 slugfest with Teurlings Catholic in the finals.
“It is amazing and I am glad that the girls get to experience this,” Sam Houston head coach Beth Domingue told the Southwest Daily News. “I know I loved it when we won it when I was in high school. I have a really good group of girls and they deserve every bit of it.”
Vandebilt fell short of its ultimate goal, but that doesn’t mean the Lady Terriers had an unsuccessful season.
Vandebilt advanced to Sulphur again, despite losing several of their most prominent players on last year’s title winning team.
The Lady Terriers took some lumps in the standings early, but progressed and played some of their best softball in the later stages of the year, including Friday when they pounded West Ouachita 9-1 in the quarterfinals to earn their meeting with the eventual state champions.
Johnson said before the tournament that she felt her team had little pressure heading into the Fast Pitch 56 tournament, adding that no one expected her team to take home the title with an inexperienced roster.
“We have no monkey on our back with no pressure this year. We are ranked No. 4 and not expected to win,” Johnson told reporters after her team clinched a spot in Sulphur. “All that is expected of us is to go represent Vandebilt Catholic as best as we can and that’s what we are going to try to do.”
They did, but just came up a little bit short this time around. But there’s always next year and the Lady Terriers return most of its core,,something that’s exciting to Johnson.
Because anyone who follows softball in our area knows that when Sulphur comes around, the Lady Terriers will usually always be one of the top teams to beat.
Houma Christian also falls in Sulphur:
Like Vandebilt, Houma Christian’s state championship aspirations faded on the historic dirt fields of Sulphur, as the Lady Warriors fell 7-2 in the quarterfinals to Avoyelles Charter.
To get into the quarterfinals, the Lady Warriors used a mix of powerful offense and solid pitching and defense.
Those basic building blocks faltered in the quarterfinals, as Houma Christian squandered a leadoff triple in the opening inning of the game, while also falling behind 7-0 through five innings of play.
The Lady Warriors made a comeback bid in the late innings, scoring individual runs in the sixth and seventh innings, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the early hole, sealing the team’s fate.
The loss ends Houma Christian’s season with a 15-13-2 record.
Vandebilt Catholic junior third baseman Sarah Ourso takes a swing during a game this season. The Lady Terriers were knocked out of the LHSAA Fast Pitch 56 state softball tournament this weekend, dropping a 9-3 battle with Sam Houston High School in the semifinals. CASEY GISCLAIR
