It was a tough week on the diamond for Jackson Parish prep baseball and softball teams. In conglomerate the five teams that played had a combined 5-11 record. Local baseball teams had the worst of it as Weston, Quitman and JHHS had a 2-8 record while Quitman and JHHS went a combined 3-3 in softball.
The past week really wasn’t all that bad for the JHHS baseball team. The Tigers equaled their victory total for the year by scoring a season high in runs while having their best pitching performance in the 20-0 pasting of Dodson and then almost beat the Panthers in the second game before falling 10-9.
Even though Quitman won one out of four games the week and Weston went 0-3 the end result was much worse for Quitman. The Wolverines beat Florien by a 12-5 margin but lost to Class A Calvary Baptist10-0 and St. Mary’s 8-4. Quitman almost saved the week but ended up falling to Class 4A Northwood 8-7 which resulted in a drop of five spots to #8 in the Class B ranking.
At first glance it would look like the Weston baseball team had the worst week of all. The Wolves lost all three games played at the Live Oak tournament, 4-3 to Teurlings Catholic, 16-0 to St. Charles and 12-2 to the tourney host. But although the losses ended the Wolves season opening winning streak at nine straight, being that Teurlings Catholic is #1 in Class 4A, St. Charles is #3 in Class 2A and Live Oak is #7 in Class 5A in the COMBINED power rankings of select and non-select schools, the losses didn’t affect Weston’s top ranking in Class B.
There were six softball games played by Jackson Parish schools this past week with Quitman going 3-2 and JHHS dropping their only game. In the crazy world of power point rankings despite the 15-0 loss to Class B Choudrant the Lady Tigers actually improved a spot in the rankings. Go figure.
Ending on a positive note the Quitman’s softball team actually had the best week of all six, area teams. The Lady Wolverines went was the only team to have a winning record for the week and what a busy one it was too.
Five games in five days ended up with Quitman posting a 3-2 record. Included was the 9-0 victory over Choudrant for their second district 1B win against no losses where Cali Deal struck out an incredible 17 batters including the entire batting order before Choudrant got the first of only three singles in the game.
This was followed by a come from behind 10-4 victory over Class 4A Northwood where 8th grader Maggie Guyotte got the win on the mound and powered the seven-run rally in the bottom of the fourth inning with a three-run jack to reverse a 4-1 deficit.
Losses to the top ranked team in Class 5A followed with West Monroe no-hitting and ten run ruling Quitman for a 10-0 victory. Then came another loss which hurt worse as it was at the hands of who the Lady Wolverines most likely will meet if they play for the Class B state championship. Quitman held a 5-1 lead heading into the top of the fifth inning, but top ranked Holden scored rallied for five runs in their half of the fifth and then held on for the win despite the Lady Wolverines having a would be game tying runner on base at the end. Forest turned out to be no match as Guyotte struck out nine over six innings for the 10-0 shutout.
