By Joe Halm, Sports Writer
Just three outs away from a state tournament bid last season, St. Amant came back and dashed the Hahnville High School softball team’s dreams. The Lady Tigers haven’t forgotten how close they were last year, and this season, are focusing on making sure they’ll punch their ticket to the 32-team state tournament.
After last weekend’s St. Amant tournament, Hahnville is 10-3 with losses to quality clubs the likes of Parkview Baptist, Evangel and New Iberia. At the tournament, the Lady Tigers loss a nine-inning marathon to New Iberia 4-3, before handling Beau Chene 4-0 and False River 17-0.
“We played pretty good all three games. We just had a tough loss against a good New Iberia team,” head coach Kenneth Vial said.
The Lady Tigers started 6-5A district play Tuesday by hosting cross-river rival Destrehan and will travel to East Ascension today at 4 p.m. Vial said his Lady Tigers are focused on winning at a better than .500 clip during a very tough 10-game district schedule.
The district powerhouse is St. Amant (15-0), winners of five of the last seven state championships. East Ascension (8-6) and Dutchtown (8-5) are both quality teams according to Vial while East St. John (0-10) and Destrehan (4-6) will round out a district filled with landmines for a team in search of a top three spot and a state playoff berth.
“It is going to a war to try to get in the playoffs because our district is so strong,” Vial said. “We have played well, and we could have easily won the three games we lost. All of three of them, we were in position to tie them or win at the end of the game.”
On the field, Hahnville will start five freshman, at times, compared to just three seniors. Six of the Lady Tigers are in their first or second year of high school competition, Vial said.
This season’s returning starters include senior leftfielder Jessica Cancienne, senior rightfielder Jia Bridges, junior pitcher Lauren Candies and senior first baseman Mindy Gaubert. The rest of the lineup includes freshman catcher Amye Barre, freshman second baseman Courtney Dutreix, freshman shortstop Summer Melancon, sophomore third baseman Elise DeBruler and sophomore centerfielder Taylor Webre. Freshman Hope Mair will DH.
One key element missing from this season’s lineup is junior Destinee Nicholas who has been out for two months with a knee injury suffered while sliding during a practice drill. Last year’s leading hitter may not return this season.
“It really hurts us because she was our three hole hitter, and she led the team in hits and average last year,” Vial said, adding that several Lady Tigers have picked up the slack thus far this season. Bridges has three home runs to lead the team, and Cancienne is “unconscious” at the plate right now, hitting more than .500 with 20 hits in just 13 games.
While Hahnville has had some surprise offensive production, Vial said good defensive play and pitching from Candies and freshman Hannah Haydel will be the keys to victory.
“It starts in the circle. Our pitcher has to hit her pitches, and she throws like five or six different pitches. We need to put together a few good innings offensively, and that is what we have been able to do. We have put together some nice innings where we score three or four runs,” he said.
But the road got a little harder this week as conference play began. The Lady Tigers won 25 games last season but conference foes St. Amant won 29, Dutchtown won 28 and East Ascension won 28 a year ago.
“This is bar none the toughest softball conference in the state,” Vial said. “You are not sneaking by here.”
The coach said he told his team they need to go 3-3 against the big three if they hope to make the state playoffs because six wins in conference play will guarantee a top three finish.
“We have a young group but we are pretty talented. We are going to go as far as our pitching takes us. We’ll be as good as our pitcher because we are not the strongest offensive team. We’re good defensively,” Vial said. “These kids have played a lot of softball, and they know what it takes to win. We have got to bring our A game because B games don’t get it done.”
The Lady Tigers will play in the Hahnville tournament this weekend before returning to district play Tuesday against Dutchtown at home.
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