It is a long way to Morgan City from Jackson Parish. For the twelve young men and their families who ventured there to represent Jackson Parish in the Dixie Boys 10u state tournament last weekend the return home probably felt even longer, but it shouldn’t have.
The local All-Stars certainly made their presence felt in the swamplands. Over the three games Jackson Parish scored 30 runs. A “standard” Dixie Boys game goes six innings. Multiply that times three and you come to 18 innings. In 16 innings Jackson Parish was either tied or held a lead.
Two of the three games played though were not “standard” games. Far from it. Were it not for an untimely bad bounce here or a break there, Jackson Parish could have easily been 3-0 after three games instead of the 1-2 record that they exited the tourney with.
To recap, in the first game of the four day event Jackson Parish fell to St. Mary Central by a score of 10-9. Next came a 13-2 romp over Ville Platte followed by a gut wrenching 9-8 loss to Blanchard in an incredibly long contest that lasted over 3 hours.
St. Mary Central 10 Jackson Parish 9: Talk about going through the gamut of emotions. First, there was the joy of scoring eight runs in the top of the fifth inning to take a 9-3 lead after being two runs down. This was followed by the anticipation of heading into the last inning with a 9-6 lead after two outs were made. Then the feeling of unbelievability as three St. Mary runners scored on a triple to tie the score. Numbness followed when the runner on third scampered home on a passed ball to give St. Mary a 10-9 lead, which held up. Finally a bewildering feeling took over when thinking back that “eight was not enough.”
The breakout inning for the locals got started with Hayden Seymore walking and going to second on Dawson Griffin single. Kolt Keiffer plated them both with a double to right that tied the score at three. Tucker Goss reached third on an error that scored Keiffer and then scored on a beautiful bunt hit by Eli Henderson who scored on two errors and a passed ball during the at bats of Jake Moak and Leyton Younse who walked and got hit by a pitch. Asher Rhodes walked to load the bases setting up a Seymore smash to second in his second at bat of the inning that was misplayed that allowed two more runs to cross. Walks to Griffin and Keiffer gave JP a seemingly safe 9-3 lead but the inning ended with three left on base. Jackson Parish managed only three hits in the contest but were recipients of 8 St. Mary errors and 14 walks. St. Mary got only four hits of their own but took advantage of 9 base on balls.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | R | H | E | |
| JACKSON PARISH | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 9 | 3 | 2 |
| ST. MARY CENTRAL | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | X | 10 | 4 | 8 |
2B – Keiffer
SB – Rylan Mauthe, Bryce Tolar
Jackson Parish 13 Ville Platte 2: Any drama in this one was gone after three innings with JP holding an 8-2 lead. Wait, you say, didn’t the locals have a six run lead in the first game? Yes but this time five more in the top of the six put any chances of a rally to bed.
Doubling down! Jackson Parish pounded Ville Platte pitching for 8 hits, five of those which were doubles. This added to 12 free passes allowed while Hayden Seymore, Tucker Goss and Jack Moak limited their foe to just two hits and struck out 11 paved the way for the easy win. Kolt Keiffer and Dawson Griffin got two hits and scored two runs with Bryce Tolar scoring twice and knocking in a pair. Asher Rhodes reached in all three of his at bats, via a base hit and two free passes and scored three runs. Leyton Younse knocked in a pair.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | R | H | E | |
| JACKSON PARISH | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 13 | 8 | 2 |
| VILLE PLATTE | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
2B -Tucker Goss, Dawson Griffin, Eli Henderson, Kolt Keiffer, Bryce Tolar
Blanchard 9 Jackson Parish 8 (9 innings): Four times Jackson Parish fell behind. Four times they rallied to tie or take the lead and came, oh so close, to making it five that would have won probably the most exciting game that they have played in their young lives.
Jackson Parish outhit Blanchard 12-10 and Blanchard made five errors to three for JP. The locals also got nine free passes. That comes to 26 runners on base. Stats like that usually mean victory but there was another stat that came back to bite the locals, that being the 15 of those were left holding the bag including having the bases loaded in each of the 8th and 9th innings. Every inning JP left at least one on.
Down by two after Blanchard’s first at bat Bryce Tolar and Hayden Seymore scored to tie it up. Deuce Thomas scored Leyton Younse in the second setting up a Kolt Keiffer double, an Eli Henderson triple and a pair of singles by Younse and Tolar to give JP a 6-4 lead heading into the top of the sixth. Then two singles and an error gave the two runs back setting up extra innings.
Another error gave Blanchard a 7-6 lead in the seventh but Bryce Tolar smashed a two out double to left to score Henderson and tie the game but JP failed to advance Younse from third. Four walks put JP behind again in the eighth but after Dawson Griffin walked JP got a break when with two outs a ground ball to short was booted allowing |Griffin to come around and knot things up once again.
Three more walks, two with two outs, set up a single that scored another run in the ninth but once again Jackson Parish looked ready to answer. With one out Younse walked and Tolar doubled putting up runners in scoring position. Sadly that is where they were when the third and final out of the three plus, hours contest was over.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| BLANCHARD | ||||||||||||
| JACKSON PARISH |
2B – Tolar 2, Goss, Keiffer
3B – Moak
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