After clinching the outright District 7-5A championship Saturday in a strange double-header at two different ballparks, the only thing left for New Iberia Senior High was to finish off an undefeated district campaign against crosstown rival Westgate Monday.

After struggling early against the Lady Tigers, NISH scored five runs in the third inning to break open a close game and beat Westgate 8-1 on senior day to finish off what has been an incredible regular season.

“Very proud of what they’ve accomplished this year,” said NISH coach Mitzi Lalande. “They’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. They’ve played together as a team, they’ve been dedicated, they’ve been positive, they’ve gone above and beyond anything that we’ve ever asked. When they do that, we turn it into success.”

New Iberia Senior High finished the season with a 19-3 overall record and a 12-0 district mark, the first time that the Lady Jackets have won an outright district championship and finished with an undefeated record in district play.

Unofficially, NISH is ranked 15th in the latest Louisiana High School Athletic Association power rankings. All regular season games must be concluded by Wednesday. Final softball standings are to released Thursday and first round playoff pairings are to be released Friday.

“We’re just in a sit and wait mode now,” said Lalande, who didn’t have immediate plans to play a tuneup game before the first round begin. NISH clinched the district title Saturday when the Lady Jackets traveled to Terrebonne — beating the Lady Tigers 11-0 — and then to Central Lafourche — beating the Lady Trojans 11-2 — to make up games that were rained out last week.

But playoffs didn’t matter Monday as NISH struggled early against Westgate the second time they played, after beating them 23-1 on March 8.

The Lady Tigers scored a run in the top of the first on Kayla George’s RBI single. WHS loaded the bases twice in the first but only came away with one run.

NISH tied the game in the bottom of the inning on Allison Smith’s RBI single to left. 

The Lady Jackets took the lead for good in the bottom of the second on a bases loaded walk and scored five runs in the bottom of the third on an error, Skyla Stansbury’s steal of home and consecutive RBI-singles from Maci Gauthreaux, Sydney Labiche and Elise Provost. That made the score 7-1 and gave New Iberia starting pitcher Katie Coquat more than enough cushion.

“We came out a little flat today,” said Lalande. “Taking nothing away from Westgate because they made the plays and played solid. They were a different team than what we saw earlier in the year.

“Katie pitched well today. I think she had 10 strikeouts, and she knows that defense has her back. We left a few runners in scoring position but eight runs was more than enough to get it done today.”

Westgate coach Chris Ortego, whose team finished the season 6-18 overall and 3-9 in district, was pleased with how his team played in the game and for the year.

“We played really well, “said Ortego. “We gave up one bad inning if you look at it when our pitcher got a little frustrated, but our team is going to get better. This game proves that we can play with one of the better teams in the state.”

According to Ortego, the Lady Tigers set a record this year with three district wins, the first time that has happened at the school.

“We were in all the games this year,” said the WHS coach. “Last year we got 10 or 15 run ruled several times and this year it only happened once, the first time we played NISH.

“That’s improvement right there. We have the whole infield returning next year and hopefully we’ll be pretty good next year.”

George, Taylor Bourque, Kyoko Charles, Kacie Viator and Lanie Leblanc each had a hit for Westgate.