By T. Scott Boatright
Three Lincoln Parish hardball teams straddle middle ground in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association baseball playoff brackets released Tuesday.
But only one of those teams will begin postseason play at home.
That’s Choudrant, the 15th seed in the Division IV Nonselect School backet. The Aggies will begin postseason play at Tony Antley Field as the Aggies play host to 18th seeded Hackberry in a contest CHS coach Joel Antley feels will likely be played at 5 p.m. Thursday.
Choudrant’s District 2B rival Simsboro will also represent Lincoln Parish in the playoffs and will begin the postseason on the road as the 17th seed in the Division IV Nonselect School backet. The Tigers will play at 16th-seeded Florien in a game SHS coach Scott Hiers said will be set for Saturday.
Cedar Creek is the third parish school earning a playoff berth and will do so as the No. 17 seed in the Division IV Select School playoffs. The Cougars will open the playoffs at 16th-seeded Hanson Memorial in Franklin at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Antley said he expected his Aggies to be a little higher seed-wise until a Monday upset happened.
“We were sitting at 14 (as far as seeding) until (Monday) when Converse got a big win at Red River and jumped over us,” Antley said. “I won’t say we fell, they just got a big enough win to jump past us in power points.
“But it still didn’t get us that bad getting Hackberry in the first round at home. I don’t know much about them because that school is so far away from us (south of Sulphur and southwest of Lake Charles in Cameron Parish), but they’re only three spots back. They’re not too far behind us (in seeding), so we’ll have to play some good baseball.”
Should Choudrant advance, the next team the Aggies would face is one they know something about — second seeded Weston.
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Antley said. “I don’t want to say I don’t want to play Weston, but it would have been interesting to play someone new if we make it to round two. They beat us at their place this season, but when you throw two good teams with two good pitchers together, you never know what’s going to happen, so I’ll take it.”
Antley expects to go with his two top pitchers — Eli Callendar and Kolton Smith — to try and power the Aggies through the playoffs.
“Eli will start for us with Kolton coming in behind him,” Antley said. “I don’t want to overpitch Eli, so we’ll take it game by game as to how he feels with Kolton ready to pull in the slack if needs be.
“If Eli is throwing well and pitching like he can and let Kolton come in to finish if Eli isn’t ready to finish. Or if Eli stays strong, we’ll probably keep rolling with him.”
The main focus is taking things game by game, winning and moving forward.
“I know the players are willing to do whatever we need from each of them to score runs,” Antley said. “Because that’s what we’ll need to do —- help our pitchers and get them a little more comfortable.”
Antley hopes his Aggies can heat up their bats early.
“If we can go out early and come up with four or five runs and let Eli get comfortable and not be stressed, I’ll feel better,” Antley said. “Because guys always pitch better when they’re not under stress trying to do too much.”
Simsboro was on the brink of likely hosting a first-round game before falling 8-5 at Calvin on Monday.
“We were going to face the same team either way — we just thought we’d be at home,” Hiers said. “We squandered a 5-0 lead and ended up losing. So now we have to go play at Florien instead of them coming to Simsboro.
“That would have given us the power points we needed to host if we had won. But we didn’t.”
Hiers said he doesn’t know much about Florien.
“From the little research I’ve done, it seems they look a lot like us,” Hiers said. “They’re around the .500 mark, and some of the people they’ve beaten we’ve beaten and some of the team that have beaten them have beaten us, too.”
“I’ll find out more specifics, like if they have a big arm or something like that, over the next couple of days. But they seem to be a lot like us — whoever shows up and plays the best will win. I know that’s the way it works, but it looks like they’re going to be a lot like us, good on some days and not so good on others.”
Hiers said he’s pretty sure the game against Florien will be played on Saturday.
“I don’t know the time yet,” Hiers said. “I don’t know their coach, but in the little bit we’ve talked he said his wife is having a baby on Friday, so that’s out. And we really don’t want to go down and play Thursday and have to get back home so that the players will be in school for testing.
“Sometimes you might argue back and forth because of pitching matchups and the time it would give your team to rest, but when someone tells you their wife is probably going to have a baby on Friday, you have to realize they’re going to want to be there. He held the trump card this time, so we’ll play Saturday.”
The Cougars have closed the season with some big wins over 5A schools, including Airline, Benton and Captain Shreve. Head coach Chad Yates said he is pleased with his team’s fight over the last few weeks.
“I couldn’t be happier for this team, these seniors, our fans and all our Cedar Creek support system,” said Yates about the playoff berth. “We challenged this team at the beginning of the season with having the ability to go out each and every day and compete and give their very best effort regardless of outcome. We knew the wins and losses would take care of themselves.
“We challenged them with the schedule that we played, and I have no doubt that they are prepared for playoff baseball. We are excited about the opportunity to play Hanson Memorial this Saturday. At this time we don’t know much about them outside of they have a pretty good arm with some velocity. We’ll reach out to few relationships we have in the coaching community and collect some more information on them so we will be as prepared as we can be.
“We’ll continue to prepare on our end to do the things that have helped us be successful this season. Playoff baseball is exciting and fun and tends to bring the best out of each competitor. Should be a great experience for everyone involved.”
