MCHS will travel to face Leesville Saturday

This year’s Morgan City High School softball team has exceeded coach Tamara Keller’s expectations.

With a young squad — four freshmen and four sophomore starters — joined by the team’s lone upperclassman, senior Dwanna LeBeau on the field, Morgan City has equaled last year’s win total with a 15-6 mark, and for the second consecutive year, has advanced to the second-round of the Class 4A postseason as the District 7-4A runner-up.

“Starting with me, my expectations were just that I wanted to have a strong season,” Keller said. “I knew that we had some freshmen that had to replace some seniors. I’ve got four freshmen starting, four sophomores and one senior, and so the expectation was a rebuilding year. We didn’t expect to do so well in district. To move on to the second round is a bonus for us, and then obviously, anything past this is just extra icing on the cake.”

The second round of the postseason for Morgan City, Class 4A’s No. 13 seed, features a trip to face No. 4 Leesville for a 3 p.m. Saturday contest.

Leesville enters the contest with a 20-6 mark. The Wampus Cats won the District 3-4A title with a 10-0 mark.

After a 1-5 start to its season, Leesville has won 19 of its last 20 games, including a 14-0 run-rule victory in five innings against No. 29 Franklin Parish in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs last Saturday.

In the first-round victory, freshman Madelyn Phillips tossed a three-hit shutout with five strikeouts and homered and collected three RBIs.

“They’re going to put the ball in play,” Keller said. “They’ve got a young pitcher, but she throws relatively hard. I think it’s going to be a similar game for us, like a Vandebilt (Catholic). They’ve got some slappers, they’ve got some speed, and so we’ve tried to prepare for that this week. We’ve worked a lot on our short game and fielding the short game and just laying off the drop ball (pitch).

Keller said she has confidence in her hitters, they just have to play solid defense.

“That’s always been our Achilles heel this season, and that’s what’s caused us to lose games is our defense, so if we can play strong defense, there’s really no reason we can’t win,” Keller said.

Leesville took advantage of multiple Franklin Parish errors en route to the victory.

Keller said she has harped on her squad that the pressure is not on them in this game. Rather, it’s on Leesville, the No. 4 seed, who is expected to win, Keller said. Keller said she thought a lack of pressure on her squad is a big advantage for her team.

“I told them this yesterday: ‘We’re just little Morgan City with a bunch of freshmen and sophomores and nobody expects anything from you, and all you have to do is go out and play,” Keller said Thursday.

Morgan City advanced to the second round after defeating District 7-4A foe Assumption in the first round. While Assumption won the district title, it had to travel to Morgan City in the first round as the No. 20 seed. Behind an eight-run second inning, Morgan City eventually run-ruled Assumption, 10-0, in five innings Monday.

 “They showed up really calm,” Keller said “They were ready to go, and I didn’t find they had any nerves whatsoever, so it really, really helped us to play Assumption in the first round.”

In the win, Morgan City sophomore pitcher Kennedy Hebert tossed a one-hitter with two walks and six strikeouts.

Offensively, Morgan City totaled nine hits with seven of Morgan City’s nine hitters collecting at least a hit. Six of nine collected at least one RBI. Hebert led the squad with a 2-for-2 performance with two RBIs and two runs.