Highland Baptist was forced by grade issues and a few dismissals to rely mostly on freshmen for the 2018 baseball season.

The Bears still managed to more than double the previous season’s win total, claiming victory No. 13 Friday night with a 5-2 win over District 7-A rival Centerville. Highland had won five games in 2016 and won six games in 2017, head coach Brendan Boudreaux’s first season.

“The approach to the game and the approach to the back half of the season, especially after some things didn’t go our way early on in the season, we just honestly play for one another and play to have fun,” Boudreaux said, “and just kind of embraced our situation and pushed through.”

Boudreaux said Friday’s game and the season overall showed the Bears are making progress.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” he said. “Although we’re not where we need to be yet, we’re moving in the right direction.”

CHS coach Barry Price took note of the Bears’ improvement.

“I want to give a shout out to Highland Baptist,” Price said. “Their coach is doing a tremendous job and they’re much improved. He’s doing everything the right way.”

Highland got Friday’s win by taking advantage of a half dozen errors by the Bulldogs while limiting their own mistakes after a rough first inning.”

It was a tough way to end the regular season for Centerville, which was 13th in the unofficial Louisiana High School Athletic Association Class A power rankings at 9-8 heading into Friday’s game. Though still locked in for a playoff bid when the LHSAA releases its brackets today, a late-season three-game skid has the Bulldogs teetering on the edge of the home/road split for the first round.

“I know it’s late in the season,” Price said of his team’s effort. “We’re certainly not helping ourself in the rankings, so I’m not sure if it’s senioritis or something like that, but we certainly didn’t come focused tonight.

“We’ll get in the playoffs but hopefully we’ll snap out of it before it’s too late.”

Centerville took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning after Matthew LeBourgeois walked, Trey Frederick singled and a wild pitch sent LeBourgeois home. A throwing error on the wild pitch allowed Frederick to get to third and another wild pitch brought Frederick in. Peyton Nash drew a walk and stole second base but was doubled up on a fly out.

“We ran ourselves out of that inning,” Price said. “We could’ve got a lot more. Every single run we gave up was unearned tonight. We didn’t make plays and we threw the ball all around the park, so we got what we deserved.”

HBCS (13-15) answered with three runs in the bottom of the inning, aided by three Centerville errors. A walk drawn by Sadler Delahoussaye, an RBI single by Kale Decuir and an error that allowed Matthew Elrod to reach set the stage for London Jordan, whose hit to center got past two outfielders to bring in two runs.

“It’s kind of been the struggle that we’ve had throughout the season, letting teams get an early lead and building on an early lead with some of our errors,” Boudreaux said. “We played great defense tonight and our freshman Sadler Delahoussaye had a great game on the mound and we were just able to bounce back and not look back from there.”

Delahoussaye then settled in to hold Centerville scoreless the rest of the way, giving up single hits in four of the final six innings but not allowing a run. The Bulldogs left runners in scoring position in the third, fourth, fifth and seventh innings.

Delahoussaye scattered five hits and five walks with three strikeouts in seven complete innings.

“Even the last game, which we lost, we had a much better approach at the plate (than Friday),” Price said. “We were taking some very selfish swings, popping the ball up, not taking the approach of giving ourself up and advancing the runner.”

Centerville starter Braden Gaspard allowed seven hits and walked four while striking out two in six innings. After keeping the Bears off the scoreboard for three innings, however, Gaspard allowed a pair of runs on a hit, a walk and a couple of errors in the fifth for the final 5-2 margin.

Trey Frederick finished 2-for-4 with a triple and a run scored for the Bulldogs. LeBourgeois was 1-for-2 with a run, and Andrew Cuvillier and Dravin Martin also had base hits.

Decuir went 2-for-3 with an RBI and two runs and Myles Liggett was 2-for-4 for Highland. Jordan, Freyou and Keelan Preston also had base hits and Elrod scored twice after walking two times.

“Eight of our nine starters are freshman, so our 3-4 hole hitters have just been lights out throughout the season, both freshmen, Sadler Delahoussaye and Kale Decuir, they’ve been kind of the catalysts for our offense,” Boudreaux said. “Every time, even outs, have been hard. That’s kind of their approach. They go up there looking for their pitch and when they get it they swing aggressively and put the ball in play hard all the time. Good things happen when you do that.

“Landon Jordan has always been the vocal guy and it’s good to see he was able to come through with some key at-bats and some key RBIs in that designated hitter spot and do exactly what a designated hitter is supposed to do, score some runs and put the ball in play.”