MCHS tops Vandebilt Catholic in dramatic 8th-inning finish

In a tight, competitive game, Morgan City plated the game winning run in the most unlikely
fashion for a 2-1 victory against Vandebilt Catholic in eight innings Tuesday.
With one out, the score tied at 1 and a runner on third, Morgan City’s Kennedy Hebert
popped up a pitch foul that was headed near the fence in shallow right field.
Vandebilt Catholic players ran towards the fence and second baseman Lauren Poche
laid out for a great catch.
While she was showing that she had made the catch on the play, Morgan City’s Celest
Williams, who had led off the inning with a single and later moved to third base on a sacrifice bunt by teammate Aliya Green, tagged up and scored on the play giving Morgan City a 2-1 victory.
“It was a great catch and heads up to Celest to tag up on that,” Morgan City coach
Tamara Keller said.
Keller said her team actually had never been over a scenario on tagging up on a foul ball.
On the play, she said she didn’t think Poche would catch it, rather just Vandebilt Catholic
players would run over there.
However, as soon as Keller saw Poche dive for the catch, she sent Williams back
to third base.
When she made the catch, Keller then sent Williams home.
“I think I beat her to home plate, actually,” Keller said.
Keller said solid base running propelled the Lady Tigers to victory as Morgan City’s
Hebert earlier scored a run on ground out to first base in the fourth before Williams’ heads up play at the end of the game.
Vandebilt Catholic coach Jessica Barksdale said the game's odd final play has simply to do with knowing the game of softball.
“It’s kind of bittersweet because it’s an awesome catch,” Barksdale said. “I feel like she
had an awesome game, making amazing plays. … She made three tough catches today.”
The play was Poche’s second diving catch of the evening as earlier she robbed Morgan
City’s Tyler Hebert of a base hit with a diving catch between first and second base in the
bottom of the fifth inning.
It wasn’t the final play, however, that lost the game for the Terriers, Barskdale said.
Rather, it was runners left on base.
The Terriers left runners in scoring position in the first, the fifth and the eighth innings.
“It’s just something that we have to be better at the plate, focusing when we have runners
in scoring position, and that’s basically what we told them (the team), too, that we don’t
have this happen if we focus and get those runners in and do what we’re supposed to do
at the plate,” she said.
Both teams combined for just nine hits in the game as Morgan City had six and Vandebilt
Catholic, three.
Starting pitchers, Morgan City’s Tyler Hebert and Vandebilt Catholic’s Nora Keehn,
went the distance.
In the win, Tyler Hebert allowed just one unearned run on three hits with two walks and
three strikeouts.
In the loss, Keehn allowed just six hits, walked two, hit one batter and fanned 12 in 7.2
innings of work.
Vandebilt got two of its three hits in the first inning.
With one out, Cassie Boquet and Keehn connected on back-to-back infield singles.
The next batter, Rousseau, reached on an error by Brandi Ingram and Katie Fairchild followed with a sacrifice fly to left field scoring a Vandebilt runner for a 1-0 Vandebilt Catholic lead. The other two base runners advanced a bag on the play.
However, Vandebilt Catholic stranded runners at second and third to end the inning as Logan Deroche grounded out to Ingram to end the Terriers’ at bat.
Morgan City had a golden opportunity to tie or take the lead in the bottom of the second
inning as the Lady Tigers loaded the bases via an Aliya Green single, a Dwanna LeBeau double off the base of the centerfield wall and when Katelyn Alvarez reached after being hit by a pitch with one one.
However, Keehn prevented Morgan City from knotting the score after striking out Matti
Rivere and Scottie Metrejean to end the inning.
Morgan City tied the game in the bottom of the fourth.
Hebert tripled to the right field wall to lead off the inning.
The next batter, LeBeau, grounded out to Vandebilt Catholic first baseman
Mackenzie Rousseau and Hebert came home on the play, knotting the game at 1.
Williams finished 2-for-4 with a run for Morgan City, while LeBeau was 1-for-3 with
a double and an RBI and Kennedy Hebert, 1-for-4, a triple, an RBI and a run.
For Vandebilt, Boquet finished 1-for-3 with a run, while Poche and Keehn each were 1-
for-4 and Fairchild had an RBI.
The game was a key District 7-4A contest as both teams tried to stay in the hunt for a district title. While Morgan City stayed alive in the district race, now sporting a 5-1 mark with two games remaining, Vandebilt Catholic was mathematically eliminated from winning the district title as they slipped to 4-3 in district with one game remaining.
“This team (Vandebilt Catholic) and these games mean more to them (Morgan City) than any other team we play. … We knew who was coming, and we knew if we just showed up and played our game, we could win,” Keller said.
While Assumption leads the district with a 6-1 mark, if Morgan City wins its final two
district games — at Assumption Thursday and at Ellender on April 14 — the Lady Tigers
will win the district title.
As competitive as Tuesday’s game was, it got off to a late start as only one umpire had
showed up for the 6 p.m. start and a second didn’t show until nearly an hour later.