Eagles to face Blue Jays in Class 1A semifinal

Central Catholic High School will make its fourth Class 1A semifinal appearance in as many years when the Eagles step on the field Friday to face St. Edmund in a 5 p.m. contest on Field 13 at McMurry Park in Sulphur.
The Eagles, the No. 6 seed, come into the contest with a 23-4 mark, while St. Edmund, the No. 7 seed, enters Sulphur with a 20-9 mark.
St. Edmund’s road to the semifinals included a 4-0 victory against No. 26 seed False River in the bi-district round, a 6-5 win against No. 10 Christian Life in the regional round and a 4-2 upset of No. 2 Sacred Heart of Ville Platte in the quarterfinals.
Sacred Heart and St. Edmund are District 5-1A competitors, and while the Blue Jays dropped the two regular season contests to Sacred Heart, they won the most important matchup of them all.
In the win, Drew Brown tossed a four-hitter with eight strikeouts.
He has pitched every inning this postseason for the Blue Jays and has 28 strikeouts in that span.
While the Eagles defeated St. Edmund a year ago in the postseason, the team has a new coach this year in Scott Richard.
Brown didn’t play against the Eagles a year ago, Central Catholic coach Tyler Jensen said.
“It’s a lot of guys back from last year, but they’re not the same team, if that makes any sense,” Jensen said. “Obviously they’re a year older with more experience. They play with a whole lot more confidence. Extremely athletic all over the field.”
Central Catholic senior Charlie Barron said playing St. Edmund for a second time is both good and bad.
“Last year, we beat them so they’re coming back for revenge,” he said. “They’re trying even harder to beat us this year, but we are comfortable with them. We know what they bring to the table. We know what kind
of pitching they’re going to offer, so in that aspect, we’re going to be really prepared for them. It’s just what are they going to bring to the table? Are they going to be a better team? And I’m sure they are a better team because they were young last year, so we just have to come with our ‘A’ game and play like we did last year and hopefully the results are the same.”
Unlike St. Edmund’s 4-2 win in the quarterfinals in seven innings, things were much more dramatic for Central Catholic to advance to Sulphur as the Eagles survived a 10-inning thriller against Ascension Catholic, plating the game-winning run in the top of the 10th on T.J. Ruffin’s RBI double.
While it was a hard-fought win, there are benefits of a closer game as opposed to the run-rules the Eagles had in the first two rounds.
“As a coach, of course you want a wider margin of victory for the fact that you don’t lose years of your life,” Jensen quipped, “but playing a game like that now, you’re happy because it helps prepare you for a
semifinal or a final game or whatever in being a one-run game. That was probably the best high school baseball game I’ve ever been a part of and probably ever seen. That’s probably also the closest environment
you’ll get to a state tournament without actually being in the state tournament. It was loud. It was a lot of people. There was a lot of bad and good things that happened, ups and down, and all you can really do is hope you build off of it.”
While the Eagles entered the game with a combined 30 hits in its first two playoff wins, Central Catholic was limited to just five hits in the win.
Both teams’ pitchers and defenses battled.
“It was the best defense that we’ve played all year I think all the way around,” Jensen said. “Some of the plays that we made in the middle (infield) were pretty ridiculous by Samuel (Guarisco) and Tony (Pennison). They both made really good plays. Mitchell (Lemoine) did a great job at first base. In order to keep moving in the playoffs — we talk about it all the time — you have to be able to play defense. … I think we’ve hit our stride defensively, probably the last six or seven ball games, and I’m not looking for that to slow up at all.”
Pennison, Central Catholic’s senior second baseman, said he believes the mantra that defense wins championships.
“You stopping a team (from) scoring runs by playing perfect defense, and it’s something we’ve taken pride on in the last four years since I’ve been here,” he said.
Against Ascension Catholic, Central Catholic’s Greg Leger tossed a one-hitter in eight innings of work before giving way to cousin Samuel Guarisco, who tossed the final two innings and earned the win.
This season, the Eagles have been led on the mound by Leger and Blake Hidalgo, both sophomores.
Leger is 7-1 with a 0.89 ERA and has fanned 81, while Hidalgo is 7-0 with a 1.41 ERA and 53 strikeouts.
Guarisco also owns a 5-0 record on the mound with a 1.17 ERA.
Central Catholic senior catcher Matthew Barbier said among the reasons for the successful pitching this year with such young pitchers in Leger and Hidalgo were leadership and everyone buying into the coaching staff's philosophy.
“I get the pleasure of catching all the pitchers, and I’ve enjoyed seeing them grow as baseball players and having to step into big shoes,” Barbier said.
Offensively, Guarisco, a junior, leads the Eagles with a .404 batting average with five doubles, two triples, one home run, 22 RBIs, 28 runs scored and 12 stolen bases.
Stefano Guarisco, a junior, is right behind with a .401 batting average with three doubles, two triples, 14 RBIs, 32 runs scored and 20 stolen bases.
Rounding out the Eagles’ top hitters are Thomas Garber, a sophomore, who is batting .390 with five doubles and 22 RBIS, while Mitchell Lemoine, also a sophomore, is hitting .383 with eight doubles, one home run and 32 RBIs.
While the Eagles have come up empty the past three years on their bid for a state title, Barron said to get over the hump, he and his teammates need to just forget about the past.
“We’re a different team, of course, and we’ve been lucky to make it four years in a row to the state tournament, and a lot of teams aren’t even able to make it once,” he said.
He said the Eagles need to believe that they will win the title this year in order to win it.
Jensen said his team, minus three freshmen, know what to expect at the state tournament.
“I think we just have to be really mature and understand that bad things are going to happen, be able to overcome them and just play the way we can,” he said.
The winner of the Central Catholic-St. Edmund matchup will face the winner of the earlier semifinal between No. 1 Ouachita Christian and No. 5 Covenant Christian on Saturday at 4 p.m. on Field 37 at McMurry Park.
Friday’s contest will be broadcast on KBZE 105.9 FM and KFRA1390 AM with pregame beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Additional reporting by The Opelousas Daily World