Sacred Heart falls short in first round

If you are the Sacred Heart Trojan baseball team, you must be wondering what do the proverbial “baseball gods” have against you, as they fell to the Sterlington Panthers 3-2 in their first round playoff game Monday afternoon.
Amazingly, this is the eighth time this season that Sacred Heart has lost by one run. Even Trojan head coach Cody Vidrine has a hard time explaining the way things have gone over the course of the season.
“It is like the tide never turned in our favor,” said Vidrine. “Once again we had opportunities to break through, but just could not come up with the big play. That is how it has gone all season. We just never seemed to get or create the breaks needed to finish ballgames.”
With the loss, Sacred Heart finishes the season 12-13-1 and bow out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2010.
It looked as if the Trojans were going to get the offense going from the start of the game. With two outs in the top of the first, Caleb Soileau singled to centerfield. Keaton Tate took advantage of an errant throw and reached second base, moving Soileau to third. But, Jacob A. Lafleur could not push the runners across, as he grounded out to shortstop.
Starting Sacred Heart pitcher Conner Fontenot was on top of his game, not allowing any runs to the Panthers in the first three innings, collecting five strikeouts in the process.
The Trojans took an early 1-0 lead, plating a single run in the top of the third. After Garrick Fontenot grounded out to second for the first out, Jacob L. Lafleur walked and moved to second on a wild pitch. Soileau earned a base on balls to put runners at first and third.
Tate then promptly doubled, scoring Lafleur and brought Soileau to third base. However, Jacob A. Lafleur and Sam Tuminaro could not move the runs across, flying out to first and left field respectively.
Sterlington took over the lead in the bottom of the fourth, scoring two runs on three hits. The first run was earned when a pickoff play to second base was thrown into the outfield. The second run was set up by a balk from Fontenot.
Sacred Heart tied the game in the top of the sixth when Launey scored on a single off of the bat of Nick LaHaye. Launey was courtesy running for Fontenot, who singled to lead off the inning.
But it was the way that Sterlington scored the winning run that makes the loss so heartbreaking for the Trojans.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Vidrine called for a pitching change. The very first pitch off of the change, Panther batter Dalton Dobson was hit by the very first pitch to plate the final run of the game.