Frye still chasing his dreams
July 11, 2018
Rodeo entertains, stays dry
July 11, 2018
The South Lafourche baseball team made history last year, setting the school record for wins, while also winning their first-ever playoff game — a journey which lasted all the way to the Class 4A State Quarterfinals.
But according to now-second-year coach Andrew Ravaglia, the Tarpons aren’t content to sit on 2018’s successes for long.
They’re just getting started.
Ravaglia re-lived the 2018 season during a lengthy interview with The Times, but quickly added that the goal of the program is to have sustained success over the next several years.
The coach said it will be tough to replace the huge senior group that left the program, but he added that the team has lots of talent coming up in the coming years, which has him thinking that the team can enjoy sustained success.
“We had a phenomenal group of kids,” Ravaglia said of last year’s success. “And that’s really freshman through seniors. We had, of course, a great senior class with those 12 guys. I go back to the first time I met those seniors. I asked them, ‘What are your goals?’ And they said, ‘We want to win the State Championship.’ And they did the hard work. Every day, those kids acted like they wanted to win the State Championship.”
Ravaglia said the key to the Tarpons’ 2018 success was prolonged hunger, which allowed for sustained success.
The Tarpons stormed out of the gates early, mercy-ruling Central Lafourche (a Class 5A playoff team) on opening day, then winning 11 out of their first 12 games to carry the No. 1 ranking in the state for most of their non-district ride.
But Ravaglia said that while the team had great wins — including victories against CCA, Riverside Academy, Newman and Houma Christian — it was the team’s losses which defined the season.
Ravaglia said every time the Tarpons started to buy their own hype in 2018, they suffered a loss, which took the team off its perch and kept them pushing forward.
“It all set up perfectly for us and when I say it set up perfectly, I mean that we also had some key losses, as well,” Ravaglia said. “I remember the first game our radio team broadcasted at Thibodaux and it was just tough. I thought we were a lot better than Thibodaux. They were struggling and kind of trying to find their way. I’m looking at this on paper and saying this is a for-sure win, but we go out there and we lose by three or four runs. It wasn’t even close. Hats off to them. … We had that loss pre-district and we had a key loss in district with Morgan City. Those two losses were key for us because they kept us hungry.”
That hunger lasted all the way until the one before last weekend of the season. The Tarpons finished as the District 7-4A runner-up, then roared into the Class 4A State Playoffs as the No. 4 seed. While there, they mercy-ruled Beau Chene for the school’s first-ever playoff win. Then, they beat Riverdale in the second round, securing a 2-1 series victory, which included a nail-biting, 9-8 victory in game 3 of the series.
The Tarpons then hosted No. 5 West Ouachita and ran out of steam. After a 3-1 victory to open the series, South Lafourche bowed out in the final two games of the series, losing 6-0 in game two, then 11-1 in game three, which ended the team’s season.
Ravaglia said the team ran out of arms, but added that he told his guys right after the season ended that he was proud of them and will always remember their successes.
Several members of the 2018 senior class will play baseball at the next level, including Blake Ougel (Baton Rouge Community College) and Austin Cantrelle (Nicholls State), but Ravaglia said he believes some of the other guys in the class were unsung heroes.
“Beau Callais was the best No. 9 hitter in the state,” Ravaglia said. “He did anything we asked him to do. We had a lot of selfless guys who sacrificed for the club.”
And now, it’s time to replicate that success.
The Tarpons have several holes to plug, but Ravaglia said the team has the personnel to do it in 2019 and especially beyond.
He said the 2019 team will not be able to play gap-to-gap like the 2018 team, but will have to rely on bunting, hitting and running and ways to manufacture runs.
The team will be led by guys like Jelby Cheramie and Jake Galjour — some of the few returnees who played on the 2018 team.
But the Tarpons will have new faces in the lineup, too.
Ravaglia lauded the team’s younger players for their hard work over the summer, adding that a core group led by Austin Danos, Isaiah Levens, Chandler Lasseigne, Evan Guidroz and others is ready to compete.
The Tarpons will also pool from a strong incoming freshman group, filled with players that the coach thinks can compete at the varsity level.
The team took its lumps in Swampland play, but Ravaglia said that’s because he was putting guys in uncomfortable positions defensively. Once the team settles on a nine-man lineup, he thinks they have the talent to compete.
“We want to make the playoffs every year,” Ravaglia said. “That’s our goal. We want to make it to the second round or quarterfinals every year. That’s the expectation. And some years, even go beyond that.”
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