By T. Scott Boatright
It’s been a decade since the Cougars of Cedar Creek won the school’s second straight baseball championship.
So the 2014 Cougars reunited a week ago to watch the current Cedar Creek team take on Glenbrook and celebrate the championship that all the coaches and players from that season remain proud of today.
It was all the brainchild of current Cougars coach Chad Yates, who brought up the idea of a reunion to Ben Haddox, who was head coach of the 2014 Cedar Creek baseball team.
“Coach Yates reached out to me about a month ago and told me that I might not realize, but this is the 10th anniversary season of that championship,” Haddox said. “And to be totally honest, I had no idea.
“So when he put that bug in my ear I realized what a tremendous opportunity it was. So I was able to get all of the players’ phone numbers and reached out to them, and we had a great turnout. I believe it was 14 or 15 of the guys on the varsity team that year who were able to come back.”
Two of the four seniors on that 2014 Cougars team were unable to attend the reunion.
“Grant Clary was our pitcher in that championship game but is now a professor at Tennessee Tech and couldn’t make it back,” said Haddox. “Mark Vandenlangenberg is in Florida finishing up his work in the medical field, so he couldn’t make it back.”
The other players on that 2014 state championship squad were seniors Jacob Antee and Auston McNeill; juniors Brock Blackwell, Jacob Brown, Chance Chestnut, Cole Frasier, Garrett Granger, Wes Gresham, Aaron Hunt, Preston Sparks, Josh Sullivan and Kade Theodos; sophomores Huff McIntosh, Jackson Miller, Jacob Mitcham and Josh Terral; and freshmen Aaron Clark and Alex Puckett.
Coaching with Haddox that season were Casey Blalock, Shane Mabou, Gene Vandenlangenberg, Shannon Brown and Andy Smith.
The 2014 Cougars compiled an overall record of 31-5 and went 10-0 in district play.
And the Cougars roared through the postseason, winning 12-0 over Crescent City, 15-2 over East Beauregard, 10-2 over St. Frederick in the quarterfinals, 13-8 over Central Catholic in the semifinals and 5-1 over Sacred Heart in the state title showdown.
Coaching that 2014 Cougars team to the Class 1A title was particularly special for Haddox because he played for the 2000 Cougars squad that won the school’s first state baseball championship.
“It was just a really unique and great situation to be part of both teams,” Haddox said. “What made it even better was our softball team also won state titles those years with Julie Riser, who had won state as a Cedar Creek player and then won another state title as a coach as well.”
Haddox said the uniqueness of that season doesn’t end with the fact it was a double championship year for Cedar Creek’s diamond teams.
“It’s a totally different experience winning a championship as a coach than it was winning one as a player,” Haddox said. “That 2014 (baseball) team was so unique in how they did it. They probably don’t like me saying this, but they were probably (only) the third or fourth most talented team I ever coached.
“They weren’t the most talented, but they were the hardest to beat. When they got out on the field together they really bought into the system and implemented it incredibly well. They just found ways to win games.”
Haddox remembers a point during that 2014 season he feels propelled his team to the state title.
“We played Claiborne Christian in the Choudrant Tournament that season, and we had won a lot of games,” Haddox said. “And Chad Olinde and those guys came out and put it on us in only five innings. They really stuck us in the mud.
“I remember getting on the bus on the way back and that the kids handled it really well. I remember being mad and frustrated and they just let me know that was it — that was the last game they were losing. And we rattled off about 16 wins in a row. We ended up splitting with OCS, and that was our only loss the rest of that season. The kids just went on a tear. That game was the turning point.”
During last week’s reunion, the Cedar Creek Booster Club cooked for the team and gave them a tour of the new baseball fieldhouse and all of the additions that have been done since the 2014 team’s playing days.
“The school really looks a lot different now than it did 10 years ago with all of the updates, upgrades and new buildings,” Haddox said. “So the players had a unique experience of walking around the campus and seeing everything that was new to them.”
Haddox said reuniting and reminiscing about that magical season was the goal for the reunion.
“It was all about the stories,” Haddox said. “There was a lot of laughing. We were out on the field getting ready to throw out the first pitch, and we were all cutting up the whole time. It was very cool.”
He said he missed the few 2014 who couldn’t make it back for the reunion.
“They’ve all got their own lives now, and kids and that kind of thing,” Haddox said. “In fact, the few of them that couldn’t make it were out of state — one in Tennessee, one in Florida, one in Wisconsin. Another had to work in Birmingham (Alabama).
“So they’re really spread out, which makes it a unique situation. We had one come in from the New Orleans area and another from Jackson so we did have guys who traveled in for this. It was an awesome thing.”
McNeill, a Louisiana Tech graduate now working in Dallas as a commercial lender for Origin Bank, was one of the two 2014 Cedar Creek seniors who attended the reunion.
“I think that game we talked and reminisced about the most was that state championship game,” McNeill said. “A lot of the guys had their rings on from that year. Jacob Antee wore the jersey that we wore when we won the game.
“Sacred Heart for the most part outplayed us in that game. They had 10 hits and left 14 runners on base, but fortunately for us we found a way to win the game.”
McNeill also remembers that early season loss to Claibone Christian in 2014.
“That Claiborne Christian game was a wake-up call for us where we kind of refocused,” McNeill said. “We beat OCS in an early game but ended up losing a game against them later in the season because of a couple of errors.”
Antee, who recently graduated from dental school and has started a practice in Monroe, was another 2014 senior Cougar who attended the reunion.
“It was great,” Antee said of the reunion. “It was the first time I had been back there since I was a freshman in college, so it was great seeing all of the guys. It definitely brought back old memories. That’s all we talked about during the reunion.”
Antee said he was impressed by the changes the past decade has brought to the school and the program.
“The locker room was pretty different than it was in our day,” Antee said. “They’ve definitely made a lot of upgrades around the whole school. But I enjoyed being there and getting to see all of it.”
