Morgan City 10U All-Stars begin regionals Friday

The Morgan City 10U All-Stars will hit the field again Friday afternoon at Caffery Park in Franklin looking to continue their postseason tournament action.
Morgan City will be in the eight-team North Regional where it will face Moss Bluff at 1 p.m.
Morgan City enters the regional coming off a tough finish to its district tournament.
While the squad started district play with a 2-0 mark and advanced to the district championship contest, St. Mary Central, who Morgan City rallied to edge 9-8 earlier in the tournament in a winner’s bracket game, defeated Morgan City twice on the final day of the tournament, including a run-rule win in a winner-take-all championship game for the district title.
Despite the loss, Morgan City coach Jeff Blum said this morning that he thought St. Mary Central was likely one of the best teams in the state in their division because they have played together for a while.
“Unfortunately we haven’t has as many reps as them as a team, but we’re ready to play baseball,” he said.
Blum said his team, which hasn’t played since July 8, have bounced back in practice from the tough ending.
“They’ve been working hard,” he said. “We’ve been doing a lot of hitting and pitchers have been getting workouts. Defense, we’ve been somewhat limited because we kind of gave them a couple days off after the tournament and now we’ve been having some rain so we’ve been limited to get on the field.”
However, Blum said the squad had one of its best defensive sessions on Tuesday.
They, along with the coaches, Blum said, are looking to get back on the field after a tough ending to district.
“I think they’re ready to play,” he said. “I always tell them … the teams that we’re going to be facing are good, they’re going to be very good, but we can only control what’s in our dugout so we got to play to the best of our ability.”
Blum said if his team plays how they are capable, they can play with anyone this weekend.
“We just got to play a complete game,” he said. “We got to pitch, play defense and make the routine plays and scrap out runs.”
While he said his team is strong on offense, he said they can’t fall behind because when they do, they tend to “press” on offense.
One positive to being sent to the North Regional for Morgan City is they will be playing approximately 30 minutes from home.
“The kids love hotels and different environments, but it is a distraction for anybody, so the fact that we’ll play in a familiar environment and then come back and be able to stay in our own beds and then wake up the next day in the same familiar environment and play, it helps,” Blum said. “It’s an advantage to that to be that close to home.”
Besides Morgan City, host Franklin, Patterson and Moss Bluff, other teams competing in the North Regional are the Shreveport Americans, South Sabine, the Franklinton Americans and West Monroe South.
The tournament will continue daily through Monday with the championship game set for 7:30 p.m.
However, if the winner emerging from the loser’s bracket defeats the tournament’s lone undefeated team in the championship game, an if-necessary, winner-take-all contest will be played Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.