St. Amant and EA's seasons end in Lafayette

Bitter parish rivals St. Amant and East Ascension each had their baseball seasons ended on the same day and on the same field last Tuesday.

The two squads made the playoff field--St. Amant drawing a matchup with 13th-seeded Acadiana and East Ascension getting No. 4 Lafayette.

Due to the severe weather that rolled through the state on Monday, the two games were played at UL-Lafayette's M.L. "Tigue" Moore Field.

St. Amant opened up action against Acadiana.

The No. 20 Gators came into the contest in a bit of a skid. After going 5-1 to start the district schedule, St. Amant finished the regular season by losing three of their final four games--including an 8-2 home drubbing to parish rival Dutchtown.

The bad mojo followed the Gators to Lafayette on Tuesday.

After two scoreless innings, Acadiana took control in the bottom of the third.

They got a two-RBI triple and a sacrifice fly to take a 3-0 lead.

St. Amant tried to chip away at the deficit in the next inning as Justin Duhon got on base and Brock Bowen brought him home with an RBI double.

They scored again in the top of the fifth as Ivan Prejean reached base and was then brought home with an RBI double by Brock Gonzales. It cut the deficit to 3-2.

But from there, it was all Acadiana.

The Rams scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth. One of the runs was aided by an infield throwing error.

The critical surge put Acadiana up 7-2, and they never relinquished that lead.

In the defeat, Gonzales went 1-2 with an RBI while Prejean went 1-3 and scored a run.

The loss dropped St. Amant's final record to 17-14 for the year. They ended up losing four of their final five games.

The loss also ended the Gators' run of two straight trips to the state quarterfinals.

Two years ago, St. Amant reached the quarterfinals before losing to eventual state runner-up Zachary. Last season, they reached the semifinals before losing to eventual state champion Barbe.

East Ascension also headed into the postseason with their momentum slowed down to a crawl.

The Spartans started the district season with six straight wins but ended the regular season losing four of their final five games.

However, their 6-4 league record helped them squeeze into the playoffs as a No. 29 seed.

They took on fourth-seeded Lafayette on Tuesday night and came just two innings away from advancing.

The game was scoreless until the top of the fourth inning when Austin McInnis came through with an RBI single to give East Ascension a 1-0 lead.

The Spartan advantage lasted until the bottom of the sixth inning.

There, Lafayette's Ben Reynolds belted out a two-outs RBI single to tie the game heading into the final inning.

After East Ascension failed to regain the lead, Lafayette took advantage. To the Spartans' angst, the winning Lafayette run was walked in after having the bases loaded.

The excruciating 2-1 defeat ended East Ascension's season at 15-17.